Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

May 28, 2020

USA: how to hide a covid-19 hotspot? Pretend prisoners don’t exist

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

A county trying to reopen its economy wrestles with a virus outbreak in prison.

May 28, 2020

USA: will the Coronavirus make us rethink mass incarceration?

News

Coronavirus North America Overcrowding United States

Community groups have pointed out the social costs of the prison system for decades. Now the pandemic has exposed its public-health risks.

May 28, 2020

USA: when parole doesn’t mean release, the senseless “program requirements” keeping people behind bars during a pandemic

News

Coronavirus North America Justice Health United States

Parole boards are granting parole contingent on participation in programs that are often not readily available for people behind bars, especially during the pandemic.

May 28, 2020

USA: en Floride, des milliers d’anciens détenus pourraient retrouver leur droit de vote

News

North America Access to legal rights Justice United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

May 27, 2020

USA: cleaning supplies are so scarce at this arizona prison, detainees are using shampoo and menstrual pads, lawsuit says

News

Coronavirus North America Health Material conditions United States

The plaintiffs want an independent expert to assess whether the facility has implemented social distancing measures, testing procedures, and hygiene practices adequate enough to reasonably protect detainees from contracting COVID-19 while in custody.

May 27, 2020

USA: COVID-19 takes a hidden toll behind bars

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in U.S. jails and prisons, but testing of inmates and staff remains spotty and many confirmed cases are going unreported. The resulting lack of data has deep implications for the fight against the virus, because prison outbreaks can move easily to surrounding communiti…

May 27, 2020

USA: 'people are sick all around me', inside the coronavirus catastrophe in California prisons

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

Prisoners and advocates told the Guardian that some infected inmates are in isolation without medical care or adequate food, cut off from family and attorneys

May 27, 2020

Canada: décès d’un autre prisonnier, les proches des détenus lancent un appel à l’aide

News

Coronavirus North America Health Canada

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

May 20, 2020

USA: a nation of prisons and pandemics

Testimonial

Coronavirus North America Health Overcrowding United States

The United States Penitentiary Canaan holds about 1,300 people. Qwantay A. is one of them. He has been incarcerated for 16 years and will be released in 2034. He drew some parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and mass incarceration, and shared his thoughts with Prison Insider.

May 19, 2020

USA: filling the maternal-care gap

News

North America Women Health United States

Nonprofit pregnancy support organizations help strengthen bonds between incarcerated women and their newborn children.

May 19, 2020

USA: Kim Kardashian est devenue une actrice-clé de la réforme carcérale

News

North America United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

May 14, 2020

USA: le Missouri va mener une exécution avec distanciation sociale

News

Coronavirus North America Death penalty United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

May 14, 2020

USA: crime doesn’t pay but prison does, even amidst a pandemic

News

Coronavirus North America United States

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As factories and other businesses remain shuttered across America, people in prisons in at least 40 states continue going to work. Sometimes they earn pennies an hour, or nothing at all, making masks and hand sanitizer to help guard others from the coronavirus. Those same men and…

May 14, 2020

Coronavirus: distintos países del mundo descongestionan las cárceles

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Africa Coronavirus North America Europe Middle East Oceania Justice

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: Spanish

May 6, 2020

USA: el coronavirus se ensaña con las cárceles

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: Spanish

May 6, 2020

USA: inside the deadly coronavirus outbreak at Oakdale federal prison

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

“I just feel like we were all let down,” said one prisoner. At least 39 staff and 113 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a staff source. Alfred Reece says the outbreak began when his teacher got sick. A former accountant serving an 8-year sentence for convictions related…

May 6, 2020

USA: while jails drastically cut populations, state prisons have released almost no one

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

Our analysis finds that jails are responding to the unprecedented public health crisis by rapidly dropping their populations. In contrast, state prisons have barely budged.

May 4, 2020

USA: the violent history of Angola prison

News

North America Violence United States

The Louisiana State Penitentiary is named after the slave plantation that existed on that land where the prison now stands. Columbia University explains that the plantation took its name from the nation its slaves were taken from: Angola. In 1880, former Confederate Major Samuel James purchased the…

April 29, 2020

Map of the coronavirus in prisons

News

Africa Coronavirus North America Central America and the Caribbean South America Asia Europe Middle East Oceania Health

Prison Insider is partnering with Justice Project Pakistan on its collaborative map to report the number of confirmed cases and deaths among prisoners worldwide.

April 24, 2020

USA: what data exists about Native American people in the criminal justice system?

News

North America United States

Problems with data collection - and an unfortunate tendency to group Native Americans together with other ethnic and racial groups in data publications - have made it hard to understand the effect of mass incarceration on Native people. The scarcity of data on Native Americans in the U.S. criminal…

April 24, 2020

USA: inmates at N.J. women’s prison endured years of sex abuse, justice dept. finds

News

North America Women Violence United States

WASHINGTON — Inmates at New Jersey’s only state prison for women were regularly sexually assaulted by guards and sometimes forced to engage in sex acts with other prisoners while staff members looked on, according to a Justice Department report released on Monday detailing widespread, pervasive sex…

April 23, 2020

USA: el miedo al coronavirus en las cárceles provoca huelgas de hambre, protestas y motines

News

Coronavirus North America Protest United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: Spanish

April 23, 2020

USA: la détresse des détenus libérés en pleine pandémie

News

Coronavirus North America Health United States

This article is not available in English. This article is available in the following versions: French

April 9, 2020

USA: probation and parole officers are rethinking their rules as coronavirus spreads

News

Coronavirus North America Justice Health United States

Social distancing is pressing officials across the country to skip traditional methods such as jailing people for “technical violations” like missing check-ins.