New Study Reveals 'Silent Violence' of Sensory Overload in Overcrowded Philippine Jails
Discussions about jail congestion in the Philippines typically revolve around stark statistics: thousands of case backlogs, cells designed for 50 inmates crammed with 200 individuals, and facilities operating at 300 to 400 percent beyond capacity. However, these numbers fail to convey the profound human toll of overcrowding. What does punishment truly feel like when confinement overwhelms the senses?
From Numbers to Lived Experience
Groundbreaking research from Ateneo de Manila University shifts the focus from quantitative data to the qualitative, lived experiences of inmates, investigating how carceral punishment extends far beyond legal sentences by permeating every bodily sense. The study, led by researcher Dwayne Antojado, who has personal experience with imprisonment from serving time in Australia for insurance fraud, engages with persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in Davao and Zamboanga City Jails.
Antojado discovered that confinement inflicts a relentless sensory overload—impacting sight, sound, touch, and smell—creating what he terms "silent violence." This invisible form of shackles persists daily, exacerbating the hardships of incarceration.
The Oppressive Reality of Prison Air
Nowhere is this sensory assault more palpable than in the prison air itself. Inadequate ventilation combined with tropical humidity traps a nauseating mix of odors: bodily fluids, ineffective cleaning chemicals, sweat-soaked clothing, the sourness of leftover food, and the pervasive stench of shared toilets. These smells cling to everything, lingering even in the memories of visitors long after they leave.
Physical sensations offer no respite. Overcrowded cells radiate intense heat, with wall-mounted fans merely circulating warm, foul air, providing little relief from the oppressive environment.
Compounding Sensory Burdens
The auditory and visual aspects of confinement further compound this sensory burden. The soundscape is punctuated by constant hums: sporadic shouts, clanging gates, whirring fans, blaring televisions, and synchronized greetings to officials, making quiet nearly impossible. Visually, the eyes encounter compression everywhere. Often repurposed from schools or offices, jails reflect an architecturally crushing fullness of makeshift adaptations.
- Plywood and cardboard wedged between bunks form fragile sleeping tiers.
- Clotheslines hang from bars.
- Shelves jam the walls.
- Belongings fill every available gap.
Yet, amid this struggle for survival, inmates assert dignity, resistance, and ownership through murals, religious icons, family photos, and slogans that accent the spaces.
Frustration with Elite Impunity
Antojado notes that harsh jail conditions are often perceived as a legitimate part of the Philippine penal system in public discourse. However, public reactions to high-profile detentions—such as demands that former Senator Bong Revilla receive "no special treatment"—reflect deeper frustrations with elite impunity and unequal justice, rather than a mere desire for suffering.
He argues that calls for harshness typically stem from resentment and distrust in institutions, not from a genuine belief in degrading punishment. "The insistence that he should 'feel it' functions as a moral argument about anti-impunity and equality before the law, not simply as retributive sentiment," Antojado explained.
Anchoring Ethics in Constitutional Commitments
Rather than moralizing or relativizing harm, the research grounds its ethics in Philippine constitutional commitments against cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment, alongside international standards. The central question shifts from who deserves to suffer to the effects of overcrowding and sensory deprivation on individuals and justice itself.
Addressing the Full Spectrum of Harm
Recognizing this dynamic, Antojado advocates for sensorially attuned penal reform to acknowledge the full spectrum of carceral harm. He poses critical questions: What forms of justice genuinely reduce harm, uphold equality, and address the structural roots of crime?
"By foregrounding smell, heat, sound, touch, and the micropolitics of space, this work offers an evidentiary bridge between rights-based obligations and daily experience. It invites policymakers, practitioners, and the public to attend to the sensory infrastructures of confinement where human flourishing is either quietly sustained or steadily eroded, and to craft reforms that answer to those embodied realities now," he added.
Dwayne Antojado published his findings in "Embodied Overcrowding and Sensory Tensions: A Carceral Autoethnography of Philippine Jails" in the International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice in December 2025. The research was conducted by Danika Geronimo of Ateneo de Manila University Research Communications.
