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In Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland, life in prison resembles the outside world as much as possible. However, like any prison system, they aren’t perfect. Nordic prisons are facing some of the same challenges as prisons in the UK.
Elderly prisoners
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Suicide
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Egypt
The horrific Sednaya Prison in Syria has thrown the spotlight on the reality of Egypt’s prisons, the files of those forgotten behind bars, and the fate of the victims of torture and forced disappearance during the rule of current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
Asia
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
India
As the Capital reels under biting cold conditions, Delhi prisons officials have suddenly recorded a spike in the recovery of metallic items — wires, coils, nails — from incarcerated people. Prison officials say that they are using these items to make improvised electric equipment to heat water, foo…
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Death penalty
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Iran
Inside one of Iran’s most notorious prisons, over 2,000 incarcerated people are crammed into cells meant to hold just a few hundred. Days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, as the world recoils at images of Syria’s Seydnaya prison, Iranian survivors recognize a horror all too fami…
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Social ties
Iran
As Iran grapples with widespread gas and electricity shortages, behind prison walls, incarcerated people face a desperate struggle against the winter cold. In northern Rasht’s Lakan Prison, 163 women huddle together, their collective breath the only source of warmth in cells left dark and freezing…
Oceania
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Violence
Australia
Prison guards switched off the water to the cell of a mentally ill and dying man as punishment for his strange behaviour, joked that his repeated pleas for help were “entertaining”, and then left him unobserved to die at Silverwater jail from a treatable illness that was inexplicably missed.
North America
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
United States
Moldy mattresses, 24/7 lights and constant noise contribute to a persistent health and safety crisis in prisons and jails. The Marshall Project and Los Angeles Times have identified more than 30 lawsuits regarding sleep deprivation behind bars over the last three decades.
North America
Women
LGBTQI
Health
Mental health
United States
With new restrictions on gender-affirming care, prisons confiscate underwear from trans people and compel them to cut their hair.
Africa
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Activities
Social ties
How can the complexity of information on prison conditions be made accessible and used to support change? The Prison Life Index is the result of a multidisciplinary collaboration between academics and members of civil society.
United States: juvenile detention centers in North Carolina under scrutiny for use of isolation
News
North America
Minors
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Suicide
Social ties
United States
Teenagers in North Carolina’s juvenile justice system are routinely being locked alone in their rooms for as much as 23 to 24 hours a day, according to an ongoing federal lawsuit and advocates for young people in custody.
Oceania
Long-term prisoners
Health
Mental health
New Zealand
Contracts for the Improving Mental Health Service is due to end from June 2025. Mental health workers fear some imprisoned people who are suicidal, psychotic or suffering other serious psychological problems will be left without support when their contracts end.
Africa
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
South Africa
The department of correctional services (DCS) says 66 million euros is required to refurbish the Johannesburg Sun City Prison.
The renovation project will address critical issues, including plumbing, electrical systems, and overcrowding, and will be phased across various sections of the prison.
Crises
Minors
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Israel
Thousands of Palestinians are currently deprived of their liberty by the Israeli authorities, a figure that has risen sharply in the last year. What is the current situation? Answers from the Palestinian association Addameer.
Women
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Iran
Varisheh Moradi, a political prisoner serving her sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison, has begun a hunger strike to protest the death sentences handed to female activists in Iran. Moradi, imprisoned in the women’s ward of Evin, started the hunger strike on Thursday.
Crises
North America
Health
Mental health
Overcrowding
United States
Another person has died in Los Angeles County jails, marking the 24th in-custody death so far this year and the 69th since the start of 2023.
Prisons in the eye of the storm
Analysis
Thematic paper
Crises
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Prisons, many of which are old and located in vulnerable areas, are being severely affected by climate change. What are prison administrations doing in response to these disasters? Overview.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Mental health
Protest
Social ties
Iran
Three women political prisoners in Tehran’s Evin prison have gone on hunger and medicine strikes to protest their conditions and treatment.
Africa
Crises
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
In attempting to describe Makala Prison - the scene of a deadly and failed breakout in the Democratic Republic of Congo - two people who have been inside used the exact same word: “hell”.“Makala is not a prison, but a detention centre resembling a concentration camp, where people are sent to die”.
Central America and the Caribbean
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Nicaragua
“It was an ordeal I thought would never end,” says one of the 135 political prisoners exiled on September 5th to Guatemala by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Former prisoners confirm physical and psychological torture.
Africa
Crises
Pre-trial detention
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
Families of those killed in what authorities called an attempted jailbreak in Congo’s biggest prison are demanding answers from the government as activists denounce what they say are inhumane conditions in the nation’s overcrowded penitentiaries.
North America
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
United States
This latest death follows one earlier this week at the same facility, Los Angeles’s Men’s Central Jail. The proximity of these tragedies underscores the urgency for Los Angeles County to honor the commitment it made in 2021 to close the facility and stop the cycle of death plaguing its jails.