Who are we?
The information site on prisons throughout the world
Considering penal abolitionism
Interview
10 June 2021. The abolitionist movement is not well-known in France. Three texts, recently translated into French, have been assembled into one book on the subject.
Europe: towards a binding legal framework for places of detention
9 June 2021. "To question imprisonment and detention facilities is, inevitably, to question the role of the criminal justice system in our societies." Saskia Bricmont discusses a possible binding European framework for minimum standards on places of detention.
Prison Fever, year II.
coronavirus
11 May 2021. The virus has not stopped at prison gates.
In 2021, Prison Insider continues its review of the consequences of the pandemic in prisons.
They are talking about it
Testimonials
Niger: the cost of living
Two prisoners attest to their conditions in overpopulated prisons. A way to survive: pay, every month, for access to better prison conditions.
No longer the product of my crime (but of my creativity)
“Being encased within steel and mortar shouldn’t alter the fundamental essence of a human being. Amid the brutality and apathy of the prison system, some find the ability to be creative” (Steeldoorstudios exposes the challenges of the creative process in prison.)
Switzerland: "in the evening, the shouting starts"
Georges was incarcerated for 12 months in the prison of Fribourg while awaiting sentencing. He recounts how a day in prison unfolds.
United States of America: night terrors in prison
Kyle H. has been incarcerated since 2001 and is serving a life sentence. He is held at River North Correctional Center in the state of Virginia. He bravely tells how an ordinary day goes by, when voices cannot stop, and when he becomes a stranger to himself.Recently
News
Myanmar : Aung San Suu Kyi inculpée pour corruption
This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French
United States: seen in the press / 2021
Violence, acts of protest, prison conditions, justice reforms: find out what is new about prisons and justice in this country. Prison Insider monitors the press on a regular basis.
United Kingdom: seen in the press / 2021
Violence, acts of protest, prison conditions, justice reforms: find out what is new about prisons and justice in this country. Prison Insider monitors the press on a regular basis.
Turkey: seen in the press / 2021
Violence, acts of protest, prison conditions, justice reforms: find out what is new about prisons and justice in this country. Prison Insider monitors the press on a regular basis.Recently
You may have missed...
France: Concertina, coming together to explore imprisonment
Interview
9 June 2021. Concertina's goal is to convene people from various backgrounds and disciplines, all motivated by detention and incarceration.Bernard Bolze, Prison Insider’s founder and an activist around issues of incarceration, is spearheading the event, imagined as a lively annual occasion. In three answers, he gave us the broad strokes.
Europe: the long road to human dignity
9 June 2021. "Society should be tackling this problem head-on and ensuring that human dignity finally be restored in prison." Maïté de Rue discusses the overuse of pre-trial detention in Europe and its consequences.
India: remote hearings and the rights of accused persons
8 June 2021. "Convenience must never trump the realisation of rights, even in a global health emergency." Read Madhurima Dhanuka’s insight on the impact of remote hearings on fair trials in the framework of ICPR's project
Kenya: finding Kafka in the criminal justice system
7 June 2021. "Finding quick fixes for a criminal justice system that is bursting at its seams, will do nothing to improve it."
In the framework of ICPR's project, read this insight about pre-trial justice.
Fernando Moleres
Sierra Leone
Virginie de Galzain
Madagascar
Carlos Hernandez
Venezuela
Sarah Bones
United States of America
Jérémie Jung
Latvia
Cosmin Bumbut
Romania
Stephen Tourlentes
United States of America
Augustin Le Gall
Tunisia
Fernando Moleres
Sierra Leone
Sebastien van Malleghem
Belgium
Seyi Rhodes, reporter
Haiti
Pierre Duvert
Madagascar
Irina Popova
Belarus
Nathalie Mohadjer
Burundi
Grégoire Korganow
France
Andrew Aitchison
United Kingdom
Breaking the Circle
Minors released from prison have no access to reentry programs. Some go back to the streets and try to survive; others receive support from various organisations.
Prisons of Madagascar
“Overcrowding, the stench of urine as soon as you cross the threshold, rats and vermin everywhere…” Virginie de Galzain
The Franklin Masacre survivors
Carlos Hernandez photographed the men who survived Franklin Masacre’s reign over the General Penitentiary of Venezuela.
Story of Earl Reinhardt
While seeking out a subject for a report on aging detainees, Sarah Bones meets Earl, who has spent the past 50 of his 75 years behind bars.
Pāri mūriem
Behind the walls of the juvenile detention centre of Cēsis, the prisoners are getting bored. Jérémie Jung leads photography workshops with 10 of them but is confronted with censorship by the prison administration.
Camera intimă
Conjugal visits are allowed for prisoners and take place in private rooms, located inside the prison compound. Cosmin Bumbut photographed those places, when they were empty.
Of Lengths and Measures
When nights start to fall, prisons still glow on the outskirts of towns. Stephen Tourlentes unveils the architectural stigma of incarceration.
Cinema in prison
Four Tunisian prisons host screenings at a film festival. Augustin Le Gall, a photojournalist, brings back a sample of the wind of freedom that blew into Borj Erroumi prison.
Waiting for Justice
Children are incarcerated illegally in the maximum security prison of Pademba, in Sierra Leone. Fernando Moleres shares with us the daily lives of the minors in the Prison of Freetown.
Prisons
Being deprived of freedom causes extreme distress. The images by Sebastien van Malleghem denounce the archaic and opaque walls which enclose these men and women and their broken lives.
Forgotten prisoners
Prisoners are waiting. Most of them will never be judged because their files are missing. Many will die.
Seyi Rhodes, reporter, comments on photographs he has taken inside the Port-au-Prince prison.
Captured childhood
More than one million children are imprisonned throughout the world, according to UNICEF. In Madagascar, a large majority of them are yet to be judged.
Pierre Duvert captures their everyday life.
Welcome to LTP
In Belarus, people are locked up to wean them off alcohol. These are strange places where time seems to have stopped after the fall of Soviet Union.
The Dungeon
Children languishing in dark cells. They are victims of alleged arbitrary justice, and they spend years without seeing the inside of a courtroom.
Prisons
From 2011 to 2014, Grégoire Korganow went inside some 20 corrections facilities and photographed everything he saw: inside the cells, courtyard, visitation booths, showers, solitary confinement block, and more, by day and by night.
Prison Stories
The everyday lives of inmates, guards and visitors.
