Information, topic by topic, on prisons across the world

October 17, 2019

United States of America: an average day at the joint

Testimonial

North America United States

Qwantay has been incarcerated for 16 years and will be released in 2034. He describes what a day in prison is like.

October 11, 2019

USA: California now has the nation’s strictest private prison ban

News

North America United States

The law prohibits any for-profit lockups—including immigration detention centers.

October 11, 2019

USA: how a prison play goes on Tour (photos)

News

North America United States

Thirty Colorado inmates staged “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for nearby prisons. For some, it was the first time in years they were outside 20-foot walls and razor fences.

October 6, 2019

USA: inmate recorded horrid prison conditions using cameras hidden in Bible, oversize glasses

News

North America Material conditions United States

A prisoner at the Martin Correctional Institution spent years recording life at the Florida facility, detailing horrid conditions and neglect from staff, according to The Miami Herald.

October 5, 2019

USA: the economics of prison gangs

News

North America United States

Prison gangs have not always been present in the American penal system so understanding the factors that have given rise to their growth is key to seeing prisoners as rational actors.

October 4, 2019

USA: study shows link between restrictive housing and increased risk of mortality after release from prison

News

North America Violence United States

A new study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that being held in restrictive housing (i.e., solitary confinement) is associated with an increased risk of death after a person is released from prison.

October 2, 2019

USA: Sheriffs release sick people from jail to avoid paying hospital bills

News

North America Violence United States

Michael Tidwell’s blood sugar reading was at least 15 times his normal level when sheriff’s deputies took him to the hospital. But before they loaded the inmate into the back of a car, deputies propped up his slumping body and handed him a pen so he could sign a release from the Washington County J…

September 27, 2019

USA: prison book bans called ‘arbitrary and irrational’

News

North America United States

A report from PEN America says some restrictions targeted books by authors including Barack Obama, John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates.

September 21, 2019

USA: sentenced to death by Incarceration in New York state prison

News

North America United States

The conversation around criminal justice reform is finally moving from general talk about mass incarceration to the specific reality of the multitude of people serving massive sentences.

September 20, 2019

USA: a college education in prison opens unexpected path to freedom

News

North America United States

Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative is the state’s only public B.A. program sending professors to teach behind bars. College programs like it were once far more common, but today advocates are hopeful the political winds have shifted enough to bring public dollars back to prison education.

September 6, 2019

USA: judge threatens to lock up Texas prison officials over air conditioning violation

News

North America United States

A federal judge was visibly frustrated Friday as he suggested that putting state officials in uncooled cells might be the only way to get their attention after they broke a settlement agreement to keep some inmates in air conditioning.

September 6, 2019

USA: Nebraska prison on lockdown, watchdog cites rising tensions

News

North America United States

Nebraska’s largest prison was on lockdown Thursday so officers could comb through the facility, searching for drugs, alcohol, cellphones and weapons that officials blame for feeding a surge of violent assaults on staff members.

September 6, 2019

USA: justice for all: how Camp Grace strives to make prison safer

News

North America United States

For an NBC News series shedding light on the nation’s criminal justice system, TODAY’s Craig Melvin travels to California’s Salinas Valley State Prison to learn about its Camp Grace program. The wives of two incarcerated men say the summer camp is offering inmates a chance at redemption.

September 6, 2019

USA: we must abolish prisons to rebuild communities fractured by mass incarceration

News

North America Alternatives United States

It is sometimes said that we can’t be what we cannot see, so are we able to imagine a world without jails and prisons? The U.S. is the world’s leader in incarceration. But how and where would we even begin to dismantle this enormous so-called prison-industrial complex, and what are the real solutio…

September 4, 2019

USA: New York plan to close notorious prison clears hurdle

News

North America United States

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

September 4, 2019

USA: let’s fight for freedom from electronic monitors and e-carceration

News

North America United States

I spent a whole year on that monitor, devoting a lot of that e-confinement time to considering the meaning of freedom. People kept asking me, “Well it’s better than prison, isn’t it?” I laughed and told them that that was the wrong question.

September 2, 2019

USA: trans woman kept in men’s prison for a year says she was harassed and beaten

News

LGBTQI United States

A trans woman has said that the state of New Jersey knowingly kept her in men’s prisons for more than a year, where she says she was sexually harassed and beaten.

August 30, 2019

USA: how the prison economy works

News

North America United States

When economic freedoms are taken away, informal markets will always find new and ingenious ways to satisfy demand.

August 30, 2019

USA: Woman who gave birth alone in Denver prison cell files lawsuit

News

North America United States

Diana Sanchez can be seen crying out in agony before lying down on a narrow bed in clips of silent surveillance footage.

August 29, 2019

USA: for incarcerated workers, summer heat can be a death sentence

News

North America United States

Abilene, Texas—Temperatures reached 97 degrees on June 21 at the French Robinson Unit prison the day Seth Donnelly collapsed.

August 27, 2019

USA : Aging in Guantánamo

News

North America United States

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

August 23, 2019

USA: the U.S. isn't counting prison suicides even though the law requires it

News

Suicide United States

Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide shined a light on a problem in the prison system: No one is keeping track of suicide deaths on a national basis.

August 22, 2019

USA : douzième exécution depuis le début de l’année

News

North America Death penalty United States

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

August 21, 2019

USA: Kansas’ low-staff, long-term prison deal hints at a booming future for private corrections

News

United States

On Valentine’s Day at one of Kansas’ largest state prisons, the new Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, stood before a room of corrections officers in body armor and black polos and begged them not to leave their jobs.