Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

April 6, 2019

USA: should a pregnant person ever go to prison?

News

North America United States

Siwatu-Salama Ra knew it was time to go to the hospital. As the early stages of her labor began on a day in late May 2018, officers placed handcuffs on her wrists and led her into the transport van. She arrived to the hospital and to a delivery room where, inside, armed guards would wait all day an…

April 5, 2019

USA: if prisons don’t work, what will?

News

North America United States

The Democratic presidential candidates should look at what a growing number of prosecutors are doing to end mass incarceration.

April 5, 2019

USA: America is finally being exposed to the devastating reality of prison violence

News

North America Violence United States

Recent reports show how overcrowding, understaffing, and limited resources are contributing to violence in prisons.

April 4, 2019

USA: in Alabama prison reveal horrific conditions and abuse

News

North America United States

A trove of photographs depicting brutalized and murdered prisoners in Alabama’s St. Clair Correctional Facility has thrust the treatment of our nation’s 2.3 million incarcerated people into public view. The first horror is what these people have endured in prison. The second horror is that while sh…

April 2, 2019

USA: free prison calls could finally be coming to connecticut

News

North America United States

Connecticut may soon be the first state in the nation to make calls from prison free for incarcerated people and their families, following on the heels of New York City, which became the first city to do so last year. Decades of research have shown that keeping in touch with loved ones while incarc…

March 31, 2019

USA: German-style program at a Connecticut maximum security prison emphasizes rehab for inmates

News

North America United States

Taking cues from the prison system in Germany, where the main objective is rehabilitation, a program based on therapy for 18 to 25-year-old offenders is taking shape at a prison nicknamed ‘the Rock.’

March 28, 2019

USA: Supreme court stays execution of Buddhist inmate

News

North America Religion United States

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the execution of a Buddhist inmate in Texas whose request that his spiritual adviser be present in the execution chamber had been denied.

March 19, 2019

USA: Nebraska prison population hits new high; 'I hope it's an anomaly,' corrections chief says

News

North America United States

Here’s a record Nebraska leaders didn’t want to set: a new high for prison overcrowding.

March 18, 2019

USA: Pennsylvania state prison system to ban tobacco

News

North America United States

Pennsylvania’s prison system is banning all tobacco products at all facilities. Corrections Secretary John Wetzel announced the ban Monday.

March 14, 2019

USA: the school-to-prison pipeline is getting worse for black and brown girls

News

North America United States

In the US, black and Latinx girls are disproportionately punished and assaulted by school administrators for simple infractions such as showing emotions.

March 12, 2019

USA: federal prisons official used prisons labor

News

North America United States

The Bureau of Prison’s South Central regional director utilized incarcerated people from a Texas prison to work on a landscaping project at his church. A high-ranking Federal Bureau of Prisons official used incarcerated people from a Texas prison to provide labor for his church to finish a landscap…

March 12, 2019

USA: Gov. Newsom to order halt to California’s death penalty

News

Death penalty United States

Gov. Gavin Newsom is suspending the death penalty in California, calling it discriminatory and immoral, and is granting reprieves to the 737 condemned inmates on the nation’s largest Death Row.

March 12, 2019

United States of America: hopeless insomnia

Testimonial

North America United States

Robert Lee Allen is currently serving his fifth year of a 17 years-sentence. He tells Prison Insider how doing time is a daily battle.

March 5, 2019

USA: JPMorgan to stop financing private prisons and detention centers after protests

News

United States

“We will no longer bank the private prison industry,” a company spokesperson said.

March 4, 2019

USA: Inmate who delivered baby in prison cell sues state for denying medical care

News

United States

Baby delivered in toilet after calls for help were ignored , suit alleges

March 1, 2019

USA: sentenced to prison without a crime

News

United States

After 30 years, a New Hampshire man’s case could change practice of transferring non-criminal psychiatric patients to prison.

February 27, 2019

USA: California prison staff accused of setting up 'gladiator fights' by sending rivals to yard together

News

United States

Prison guards in California have been accused of orchestrating ‘gladiator fights’ between inmates by knowingly releasing rival prisoners into the yard at the same time.

February 27, 2019

USA: Terminal Island prison inmates went without heat during the coldest February in decades

News

United States

Hundreds of inmates at the Terminal Island federal prison on the harbor front spent one of the coldest periods in decades in frigid cells with no heat and only blankets for warmth before they were transferred temporarily to another facility.

February 19, 2019

USA: One of America's harshest isolation units was exposed by a desperate, handwritten account from the inside

News

Discipline United States

A Georgia solitary confinement unit was filled with the “cacophony of prisoner screams and cries for help,” a prisons expert said after visiting.

February 19, 2019

USA: Gangs, lack of guards spark teen riot at understaffed Texas juvenile prison

News

United States

Spurred by boredom, gang conflicts and anger over a lack of guards, teens at a North Texas juvenile prison rioted for six days, assaulting officers and each other during a mass disturbance that boiled over during a football game.

February 15, 2019

USA: it costs about 50 times more to make a call from an Illinois jail Than from an Illinois state prison

News

United States

This article is not available in English.

February 15, 2019

USA: Why more prison closures may be coming to New York

News

Facilities United States

Citing a decline in crime, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday proposed closing up to three state prisons by Sept. 1.

February 13, 2019

USA: from life in prison to published author

News

United States

Drug deals and gun violence were everyday realities for Chris Wilson growing up. Straddling homes in D.C.‘s Lincoln Heights neighborhood and Prince George’s County’s Temple Hills community, Wilson watched his mother fall victim to both domestic abuse and drug abuse. Many of his friends were locked…

February 12, 2019

USA: Alabama will build 3 prisons for men, Ivey announces

News

Facilities United States

Gov. Kay Ivey announced today that her administration will seek bids for building three regional prisons for men to replace aging, cramped facilities that the Alabama Department of Corrections has said are too costly to maintain and repair. The governor said new prisons are a necessary part of a la…