Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

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

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.

January 7, 2019

Canada: prison drug scans for visitors potentially unreliable and keeping families apart, researcher says

News

North America Drugs Social ties Canada

Ion scanners cause stress for families of prisoners, research shows.

December 11, 2018

Canada: au Nunavik, les prisonniers d’un système inadapté

News

North America Canada

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

December 9, 2018

Canada: épiés 24/24, les détenus souffrent d’un manque d’intimité

News

North America Canada

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

November 5, 2018

Canada: Length of solitary stays increasing in Ontario prisons

News

North America Discipline Canada

Five years after Ontario vowed to curtail its use of solitary confinement, average inmate stays in segregation cells have grown longer, with one prisoner in Ottawa remaining in isolation for at least 835 days, according to newly released provincial data.

October 30, 2018

Canada: drugs in jails, ministry says it doesn't keep track of overdoses and naloxone use

News

North America Drugs Canada

Ontario’s corrections ministry says it does not track the number of opioid overdoses in its jails, even though prisoners have died and staff are routinely treating inmates for overdoses.

October 16, 2018

Canada : feds aim to replace solitary confinement in prisons with ‘structured intervention units’

News

North America Discipline Canada

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has tabled a new bill in the House of Commons aimed at ridding Canadian prisons of solitary confinement. Bill C-83 suggests designating “a penitentiary or an area in a penitentiary as a structured intervention unit for the confinement of inmates who cannot be ma…

September 5, 2018

Canada: why prisoners are participating in the US Prison Strike

News

North America Protest Canada

Much of the US prison system’s distinguishing features — massive racial disparities, the exploitation of prisoners’ labor by private firms, overcrowding, brutality, and much more — are the same in Canada.

August 20, 2018

America’s prisoners are going on strike in at least 17 states

News

North America Protest United States

Incarcerated Americans are often forced to work for cents an hour. So they’re launching what could be their biggest protest ever.

June 24, 2018

Canada: nearly half of youth incarcerated across the country are Indigenous

News

North America Canada

Nearly half of all youth who end up in custody across Canada are Indigenous, a statistic that a Manitoba activist says shows unacceptable and systemic racism.

June 2, 2018

Global prison trends 2018

Analysis Report

North America Central America and the Caribbean Pre-trial detention South America Women Asia Europe Middle East Long-term prisoners Justice Overcrowding

Penal Reform International and the Thailand Institute of Justice co-published their 2018 annual report aiming to provide a global account on the state of prisons and the use of imprisonment throughout the world.

April 9, 2018

Canada : plaidoyer contre les dérives des conditions de libération

News

North America Drugs France

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

April 9, 2018

Of Lengths and Measures

Portfolio

North America Facilities United States

Stephen Tourlentes began to notice prisons, especially after dark, when they broadcast their location through the use of surveillance and lighting. He spent 17 years visiting these detention facilities after dark.

April 3, 2018

Story Of Earl Reinhardt

Portfolio

North America Long-term prisoners Health Rehabilitation United States

Sarah Bones meets Earl, who has spent the past 50 of his 75 years behind bars.

March 28, 2018

United States: let's imagine a national organizing effort to challenge mass incarceration

News

North America United States

This story is the seventh in Truthout’s “Visions of 2018” series, in which activist leaders answer the question: “What would you like to see created, built, imagined or begun this year?” Each piece will focus on a bold idea for transformation, to give us fuel as the year moves forward.