Facilities
Africa
Facilities
Overcrowding
Alternatives
Rwanda
National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) has reported a 30 per cent reduction in correctional facilities overcrowding in Rwanda since 2023/2024.
What prison is not
Thematic paper
Access to legal rights
Discipline
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Activities
Alternatives
Work
Overcrowded facilities or incarcerated people “treated too well”, systemic violence or “five-star prisons”: what do the facts actually say? Find out via four fact-checking articles to combat disinformation on detention conditions.
Europe
Justice
Facilities
Overcrowding
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
Portugal
In the report accompanying the proposed State Budget for 2026 (OE2026), submitted to Parliament by the Minister of Finance, the Ministry of Justice (MJ) sets a target of a 5% increase in prison spaces compared to the previous year.
Europe
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Rehabilitation
Ireland
The number of people sleeping on prison floors has surged amid a deepening overcrowding crisis. 504 incarcerated people were sleeping on the floors of jails on mattresses because no beds were available.
Europe
Drugs
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Rehabilitation
United Kingdom
About 25% of incarcerated men released from a jail in a county find themselves homeless, according to a report.
Africa
Minors
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Nigeria
A Lagos-based non-governmental organisation, Zarephath Aid (ZA), has called for urgent reforms in Nigeria’s justice sector, urging the judiciary and government agencies to go beyond speeches and take decisive steps to decongest correctional facilities, enforce child rights, and curb police excesses…
North America
Justice
Drugs
Material conditions
Facilities
Violence
United States
Amid a decade-long court battle, control of Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center — severely understaffed and rife with violence, dysfunction and inhumane conditions — is now under the control of a court-appointed administrator.
North America
Elderly prisoners
Health
Facilities
United States
United States prison population is growing older at a pace that some experts say is unsustainable.
United States: as prisons deal with heat waves, climate crisis makes abolition even more urgent
News
North America
Material conditions
Facilities
Social ties
United States
While the planet continues to warm, conditions in prisons, and specifically in solitary confinement, continue to worsen.
Africa
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
South Sudan
More than 50 incarcerated people at Wau Central Prison in Western Bahr el Ghazal State are suffering from skin diseases amid a growing shortage of medical supplies.
North America
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
All state prison living units will, in theory, have chilled air for our triple-digit summers by 2032. Until then, we sweat.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Iran
A 21-hour power outage at Sheiban Prison left incarcerated people in critical condition during extreme heat, human rights sources reported on Thursday. Power was cut from 9 p.m. Tuesday to 6 p.m. Wednesday as temperatures in Ahvaz exceeded 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
Africa
Drugs
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
South Africa
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) member of Parliament (MP), Betty Diale, has called for urgent action to fix broken correctional services. According to Diale, the correctional services system is exposed to overcrowding, collapsing infrastructure, rampant gangsterism and contraband smuggling.
United States: people in NY prison’s mental health unit kept in solitary confinement, suit says
News
North America
Mental health
Facilities
Suicide
Social ties
United States
In recent months, at least two people on the unit have attempted suicide and at least three have gone on hunger strike.
Europe
Facilities
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
Prisons in England reached a crisis point under the last government as “tough on crime” policies led to overcrowding after decades of structural failings and entrenched issues.
Crises
North America
Justice
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Lawyers requested swift cooling measures in a prison with no A/C. One man shares the dangerous conditions inside while people await a judge’s ruling
Europe
Drugs
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Ireland
The Prison Officers Association (POA) has said the overcrowding crisis within Irish prisons has deepened even further this year. The service has published its annual report for 2024, in which it highlights the urgent need for expanded capacity amid mounting challenges that it faces.
Women
Minors
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Social ties
Iran
The incident on August 18 marked the latest decline in conditions at a prison activists have long described as a “cemetery,” a place where Iran sends its most marginalized women to vanish from public life.
North America
Justice
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Facing growing pressure from advocacy groups, lawsuits and climate projections that show hotter days ahead, some state prison systems are moving to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures — though many facilities remain years away from significant upgrades.
North America
Women
Justice
Health
Facilities
United States
A group of incarcerated people at Michigan’s only women’s prison filed a class action lawsuit against the state, claiming they were exposed to toxic black mold for years.
Central America and the Caribbean
Facilities
Overcrowding
Costa Rica
Costa Rica will begin construction this year on a new maximum-security prison inspired by the El Salvador mega-prison at the center of that country’s crackdown on crime, Costa Rica’s Justice Minister Gerald Campos said.