Material conditions
Women
Europe
Mental health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
Ireland
Mark Kelly said that problems are getting steadily worse, and Ireland is following the same pattern of “chronically overcrowded” prisons seen in England and Wales.
Elderly prisoners
Europe
Health
Mental health
Drugs
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Ireland
There were 31 deaths in custody in 2024, the highest number since the office of the Inspector of Prisons was established in 2012.
Central America and the Caribbean
Pre-trial detention
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Haiti
The Association of Volunteers for the Reintegration of Prisoners visited the Cap-Haïtien prison. The findings are alarming and reflect a detention situation marked by a severe deterioration of both human and material conditions.
Côte d'Ivoire: prisons in 2025
Analysis
Africa
Pre-trial detention
Women
Minors
Foreign prisoners
LGBTQI
Long-term prisoners
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Suicide
Torture
Activities
Social ties
Alternatives
Work
Côte d’Ivoire
All there is to know about Ivorian prisons in 2025. Key figures, life in detention, references: discover all the data gathered by Prison Insider.
Europe
Mental health
Drugs
Material conditions
Suicide
United Kingdom
Forest Bank prison in Salford has seen 27 deaths in just five years, raising serious questions about the safety and care of incarcerated people. Paul Britton reports.
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).
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.
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.
Africa
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Social ties
South Sudan
When traditional herbs failed to calm the turmoil in his mind, Samat Nyuk’s family felt they had no other option: they asked local authorities to detain their 33-year-old son.
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.
Nordic prisons, human prisons?
Interview
Europe
Material conditions
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
Nordic prison systems are often held up as models of respect for human rights and rehabilitation. Is this really the case, or do they mainly benefit from an idealised image? Answers.
Crises
Women
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Iran
A British incarcerated person in Iran has been moved from one prison to another following the deaths of fellow incarcerated people and hunger strikes.
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.
Iran: deaths of incarcerated people reignite calls for closure of "uninhabitable" women's prison
News
Women
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Iran
In a desert outside Iran’s capital, Tehran, lies one of the largest women’s prisons in the world. Several thousand women are believed to be incarcerated in Qarchak Prison, which is notorious for severe overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care.
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.
Pre-trial detention
Women
Asia
Foreign prisoners
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Rehabilitation
India
Karnataka’s prisons continue to face overcrowding. Of the total population, over 76% are undertrials, reflecting the prolonged pendency of criminal cases and slow judicial processes.
Africa
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
South Africa
The Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) opened a two-day consultation in Johannesburg focusing on health in prisons and the draft SADC model law on prison oversight.
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…
Asia
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Tajikistan
On September 24, Tajikistan’s Ombudsman, Umed Bobozoda, visited the YS 3/1 correctional facility in Vahdat to inspect the conditions under which incarcerated people are held.
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.
Crises
Europe
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Belgium
Staff and management at all Belgian prisons will protest against overcrowding in front of prison buildings. “The prison crisis is unprecedented, and prisons are crying out for help,” said the prison administration.
Crises
Women
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Social ties
Iran
Political prisoner Mehdi Farahi began a hunger strike to protest the death of a female political prisoner and conditions for women at Qarchak Prison.
Africa
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
South Sudan
State lawmakers in Western Equatoria visited Yambio Central Prison, urging immediate government action to address what they described as severe overcrowding, critical shortages of food and medicine, and inadequate conditions for incarcerated people with infectious diseases.