October 2025
Connecting Stories Beyond Bars
America
Pre-trial detention
Women
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Mental health
Material conditions
Violence
Social ties
‘Connecting Stories Beyond Bars - The invisible impact of prison on relatives’ is a six-episode docuseries produced with Acifad (Argentina), Amparar (Brasil), Relais Famille (Canada), OIP-SF (France), Documenta (Mexico) and POPS (UK).
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Women
Europe
Health
Mental health
Suicide
Violence
United Kingdom
The number of people dying in prisons in Wales and England has reached its highest total for a 12-month period this century, figures show.
North America
Discipline
Mental health
Social ties
United States
New York’s state prison system has been in crisis since March, when a three-week guard strike ended with some 2,000 officers losing their jobs.
Burundi: forbidden to defend
Interview
Africa
Women
Minors
Justice
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Burundi
S. is a lawyer. She works to defend the rights of women and children. She was imprisoned from February 2023 to April 2024 because of her activism. We met her during her visit to Paris (France).
North America
Elderly prisoners
Health
Mental health
United States
The Trump administration will result in the closure of many rural hospitals, leaving people in the surrounding communities — including those in prisons and jails — facing elevated healthcare costs and limited access to necessary healthcare.
Asia
Drugs
Overcrowding
Death penalty
Sri Lanka
In response to the Prisons Commissioner’s remarks that drug traffickers sentenced to death should be hanged, the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners (CPRP) criticised the statement, saying that executions are not the solution to Sri Lanka’s prison overcrowding.
Pre-trial detention
Women
Europe
Minors
Foreign prisoners
LGBTQI
Access to legal rights
Overcrowding
Turkey
The number of incarcerated people in Türkiye’s prisons has reached 420,904. This marks a sevenfold increase from the 59,429 recorded in 2002, the year the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power.
The power of the group (1/6)
Testimonial
America
Europe
Access to legal rights
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Hearing the voices of relatives of incarcerated people in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico and the UK reveals one key finding: the group brings enough strength to build resistance. Coming together offers a space for dialogue, mutual support, and the ability to build concrete responses to d…
The echo of violence (2/6)
Testimonial
America
Europe
Access to legal rights
Mental health
Violence
Social ties
How are the lives of relatives affected when someone they love is deprived of liberty? Feelings of powerlessness, dehumanisation, daily life disruption — prison affects not only the incarcerated people but also, often invisibly, those left on the outside.
The cost of incarceration (3/6)
Testimonial
America
Europe
Justice
Mental health
Material conditions
Social ties
Rehabilitation
The State deprives people of their freedom and ignores everything else. It is the relatives — most often women — who bear the costs of imprisonment and support those in prison, while trying to keep life going outside.
The mechanics of punishment (5/6)
Testimonial
America
Europe
Minors
Access to legal rights
Justice
Violence
Social ties
Alternatives
Prison is not only a place of punishment; it is also a reflection of social divides. Rather than repairing damage, it accentuates inequalities and perpetuates discrimination. To combat this, associations of relatives are establishing themselves as spaces of resistance.
From experience to action (6/6)
Testimonial
America
Europe
Access to legal rights
Justice
Social ties
The prison system deprives and marginalises, but resignation does not prevail. Relatives take action and demand justice to build a system respectful of human rights.
Asia
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
India
If anything, India should study the basic living standards in select foreign prisons and improve the domestic conditions. The jails that are there are almost impossible to expand.
Europe
Access to legal rights
Justice
Mental health
United Kingdom
The family of a Gloucestershire man who has been in prison for 16 years after initially being given a two-and-a-half year sentence are appealing to parliament for his release.
Africa
Crises
Foreign prisoners
Access to legal rights
Eswatini
A Cuban man deported by the United States to Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison, having been held there for more than three months without charge or access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program.
Crises
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Health
Mental health
Torture
Violence
Israel
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office has revealed harrowing conditions faced by Palestinian in the Rakevet section of the Israeli Ramla prison, describing a systematic campaign of starvation, torture, medical neglect, and humiliation.