Respect the Rules

Advocacy within honour/shame systems

Nelson Mandela Rules

All of our detainee advocacy programs are pegged around the Nelson Mandela Rules (NMR), which is the popular name for the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. These 122 rules are the universally acknowledged blueprint for prison management in the 21st century.

The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners is named in honour of Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in South African prisons before becoming its first Black President.

Rules or reality?

But just as blueprints are not actual buildings, so these rules are no yet universal practice. Together with the UN, monitoring agencies and NGOs across the globe, we are committed to turning these rules into actual practice - for the benefit of detainees, custodial staff, and our society at large.

Response to rules?

Cultures fall broadly into guilt/innocence or honour/shame systems.

Honour/shame cultures are not exact opposites of guilt/innocence ones. They are just entirely different ways of thinking and behaving.

Our response to the stark difference between theory and reality is to be constructive rather than critical. This is because open criticism is ill received in many countries, including those steeped in an honour/shame culture. This makes it counter-productive.

Respect the rules

So we build each of our detainee advocacy programs around one of these rules, then turn it into a respectful message. This is more constructive than accusing someone of breaking a particular rule. ‘Rules’ are guilt/innocence language. ‘Respect’ is honour/shame language. ‘Respect the rules’ is a hybrid approach.