4.5. Qualitative interviews Qualitative interviews were used to capture in-depth narratives of prisoners’ experiences from the time of arrest, through their time in the criminal justice system, and inside the prison. Inmate interviews Interviewees were selected based on the categories of prisoners identified above. Therefore, remandees, convicted, condemned and life prisoners were interviewed, and the longest serving prisoners, newest entrants, oldest and youngest prisoners were often chosen as interview candidates. Prisoners would also be selected as candidates if they had volunteered information in their questionnaires that illustrated unique or important aspects, or simply requested to be interviewed for the study. Pre-prepared questions, which followed the general framework of the questionnaires, on standard prison conditions and treatment were used and all inmates were asked these questions, coupled with questions specific to their detention status or specialized category. The number of interviews conducted at each prison ranged from fifteen to forty, affected by time-constraints, type of institution and the size of the prison population. Interviews were conducted in English, Sinhala and Tamil as well as Urdu, Spanish and Italian in the case of some foreign inmates. Each interview lasted for a duration of forty-five minutes to two hours, with an average of one hour taken to complete each interview. All interviewees were guaranteed confidentiality and required to consent to being recorded, after receiving all necessary information on the purpose of the study and the potential use of the recordings. Personnel from the prison administration were not present when the interviews were conducted. All interviews conducted were transcribed and translated to English for the purpose of data analysis. Certain obstacles had to be overcome when conducting interviews due to the nature of the prison environment and the daily schedule of the prisoners. In the Welikada Prison, Sunday is the only day on which inmates are not required to work in their respective work parties, and therefore can be removed from their wards for interviews. Certain prisoners could not be allowed to mix with others. As prisoners are sent back into their wards after 1700h, officers of the Commission remained inside the prison premises in many of the prisons from 0900h to 1700h, without taking any breaks, in order to ensure an adequate number of interviews were conducted in a day. A total of 352 interviews were conducted during this study, with 262 male interviews and 62 female interviews. 53% of the interviews were conducted in Sinhala, 37% in Tamil and 10% in English, Urdu, Spanish and Italian. 13