This year
Europe
Material conditions
Social ties
United Kingdom
According to the Prison Service, all 92 closed public-sector prisons in England and Wales will be fully fitted with phones by February 24.
Asia
Justice
Material conditions
Violence
Russia
Russia’s most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail, the prison service has said. President Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous critic, he was serving 19 years on extremism charges that were widely seen as politically motivated.
Central America and the Caribbean
Material conditions
Facilities
El Salvador
Since the Cecot (Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism) opened on 31 January 2023, the BBC had repeatedly requested access to the mega-prison. It was finally granted two days after President Nayib Bukele claimed victory in the presidential election held on 4 February.
Oceania
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
New Zealand
Prisoners seeking mental health support at a prison south of Palmerston North were waiting up to three months to see a clinician, inspectors say.
North America
Access to legal rights
Health
United States
Mississippi prison health care contractors withheld cancer diagnosis and treatment for years, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
South America
Justice
Material conditions
Torture
Ecuador
An Ecuadorian judge has ordered the Ombudsman’s Office to investigate alleged acts of torture by the military in several prisons in the country. The move comes under the state of emergency enacted by the government at the beginning of January to end a prison riot crisis.
Incarcerated for life
Analysis
Inside Outside
Africa
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Long-term prisoners
Prison Insider, represented by Clara Grisot, contributed twelve compositions to the book InsideOutside to articulate, in a few words, the current challenges of prison life. First piece: life imprisonment.
Minors
Oceania
Material conditions
Facilities
Australia
Youth detainees have no air conditioning in their cells at Casuarina Prison’s Unit 18. Temperatures have hit upwards of 40 degrees Celsius in parts of Perth this week. There are fresh calls for Unit 18 to be closed immediately, with authorities yet to answer questions about what else is being done…
Europe
Material conditions
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
The head of the Scottish Prison Service Teresa Medhurst has said the jails are too full and she may soon have to say “enough is enough, we cannot take any more”.
Europe
Discipline
Mental health
United Kingdom
Independent Monitoring Board says jails in England using segregation too often as a way of managing inmates
Asia
Justice
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Torture
Pakistan
Pakistan’s prisons remain terribly overcrowded and under-resourced, and nascent efforts at progressive reform are stymied by ingrained attitudes of discrimination, including against religious and ethnic minorities.
Asia
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
North Korea
“There’s not much space inside the cells for each crew, so prisoners sleep very close together, with one person’s feet brushing against another’s head,” a source told Daily NK.