USA: A nation of prisons and pandemics
Testimonial
20 May 2020. "They are both man-made illnesses, one social and one respiratory. One intentional and the other inadvertent (presumably). They both disproportionately impact marginalized communities of poor and colored people." Qwantay is incarcerated in Pennsylvania. He drew some parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and mass incarceration.
Unclear fates behind bars
3 questions to...
19 May 2020. ”Since 2000, the overall number of pre-trial detainees has increased by 30%”. They are now up to three million people to be held awaiting trial around the world. What is the purpose of pre-trial detention? How it is used around the world?
Coronavirus: Prison Fever
28 May 2020. The COVID-19 does not stop at prison gates. What measures are taken to guarantee the safety of all prisoners and prison staff? What are the consequences of the pandemic on the living conditions in prisons? Here is an overview.
They are talking about it
Testimonials
USA: a nation of prisons and pandemics
The United States Penitentiary Canaan holds about 1,300 people. Qwantay A. is one of them. He has been incarcerated for 16 years and will be released in 2034. He drew some parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and mass incarceration, and shared his thoughts with Prison Insider.
France: "They’ve put us back in prison"
Samy is detained on partial release in the west of France, in Le Mans. It is normally possible for these prisoners to go out during the week, notably to seek employment. Faced with the coronavirus pandemic and to limit social contact, those who are on partial release have been placed in detention. Samy…
Belgium: locked-up outside
How does someone truly become free? Marcus spent his childhood in a children’s home before serving more than 20 years in prison. He has never known anything other than confinement.
Central African Republic: a woman and a prison director
Training, life in prison, lack of staff and budget, security, armed conflicts: Gisèle explains, based on her own experience, how incarceration is managed in a country where resources are scarce, and demands are abundant.Recently
News
Afghanistan: life inside Kabul's women's prison during Covid-19
Thousands of prisoners in Afghanistan have been released and pardoned as the country battles the Covid-19 pandemic. But in Kabul’s only prison facility for women, more than a hundred women, often with young children, remain behind bars. FRANCE 24 reports from Kabul. In Afghanistan’s overcrowded prisons,…Source — France 24
USA: solitary confinement is fueling New York's prison suicide crisis
On average, someone attempts suicide in one of New York State’s prisons every other day. And 43 percent of those suicide attempts occur in the state’s notorious solitary confinement units — the Special Housing Unit, or SHUs. Solitary confinement is also linked to higher rates of death by suicide, and…Source — Solitary Watch
USA: what women dying in prison from COVID-19 tell us about female incarceration
This article was originally published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Melissa Ann Horn’s name appeared over and over in court records and jail blotters in the rural Virginia county where she was born, and where she was arrested for crimes…Source — Argus Leader
Australia: aboriginal people in prison and out-of-home care suffering under 'punitive' Covid-19 restrictions
Aboriginal people in prisons are going without soap, and children in out-of-home care are being refused contact with their families under “punitive” restrictions enforced due to Covid-19, a report released on Wednesday has said. Aboriginal people are disproportionately affected by Covid-19 policy responses…Source — The Guardian
Recently
You may have missed...
Hungary: tight measures in a closed system
news
6 May 2020. The penitentiary institutions have become more closed and less transparent since the COVID-19 outbreak. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee follows the evolution of the situation. The organisation shares with us the latest news.
Turkey: LGBTI prisoners, a life in isolation
3 questions to...
5 May 2020. Aggression, isolation, human rights violations: the experience of detention for LGBTI prisoners is particularly tough. Their specific needs are not met by the penitentiary system.
Belgium: locked-up outside
Testimonial
4 May 2020. "It’s too late for me”. Those are Marcus' words. He spent his childhood in a children’s home before serving more than 20 years in prison. He has never known anything other than confinement. Prison Insider republishes a report by three young journalists.
Central African Republic: a woman and a prison director
Testimonial
30 April 2020. Training, life in prison, lack of staff and budget, security, armed conflicts: Gisèle explains, based on her own experience, how incarceration is managed in a country where resources are scarce, and demands are abundant.
Sarah Bones
United States of America
Fernando Moleres
Sierra Leone
Jérémie Jung
Latvia
Cosmin Bumbut
Romania
Stephen Tourlentes
United States of America
Augustin Le Gall
Tunisia
Fernando Moleres
Sierra Leone
Sebastien van Malleghem
Belgium
Carlos Hernandez
Venezuela
Seyi Rhodes, reporter
Haiti
Pierre Duvert
Madagascar
Irina Popova
Belarus
Nathalie Mohadjer
Burundi
Grégoire Korganow
France
Andrew Aitchison
United Kingdom
Virginie de Galzain
Madagascar
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.
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.
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.
The Franklin Masacre survivors
Carlos Hernandez photographed the men who survived Franklin Masacre’s reign over the General Penitentiary of Venezuela.
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.
Prisons of Madagascar
“Overcrowding, the stench of urine as soon as you cross the threshold, rats and vermin everywhere…” Virginie de Galzain
