News
Africa
Pre-trial detention
Women
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
South Africa
The stench of faeces inside a toilet filled with waste, fly-infested and leaking cells, flooded floors, beds without mattresses, damaged infrastructure, crime and corruption is what greeted Correctional Services Minister Dr Pieter Groenewald and members of the portfolio committee on security and ju…
Asia
Justice
Overcrowding
Cambodia
The Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons (GDP) is planning to hold a forum with relevant ministries, embassies, and human rights NGOs to find a comprehensive solution to ongoing overcrowding issues in prisons, as the number of incarcerated people continues to rise.
Africa
Justice
Rehabilitation
Nigeria
The Nigerian Correctional Service on Monday lamented that stigmatisation and societal rejection are forcing some formerly incarcerated people to return to its facilities. “The society is not ready to accept them. So they find it convenient to return to these prisons.”
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.
Crises
Middle East
Torture
Violence
Israel
Israeli prison guards are taking photos and filming their abuse of Palestinian detainees, while the Israeli Prison Service says this is a ‘routine exercise’. Incarcerated Palestinian people have reported being subject to violence, kicking, punching blows to the testicles and other forms of severe a…
Africa
Crises
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
In attempting to describe Makala Prison - the scene of a deadly and failed breakout this week 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…
Europe
Justice
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
Five of the former most senior judges have intervened in the debate over the prison population crisis to urge the government to reverse the trend of locking people up for longer – declaring that ‘radical solutions’ are required to tackle the prison population crisis.
Central America and the Caribbean
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Nicaragua
“It was an ordeal I thought would never end,” says Jose Enrique Sanchez, one of the 135 political prisoners exiled on September 5th to Guatemala by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. “We lived in precarious conditions,” “we endured psychological torture,” “threats to our familie…
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.
Minors
Oceania
Justice
Material conditions
Violence
Australia
Children have shared their experiences locked up in Banksia Hill Detention Centre in a report that slammed the Western Australian government for “systemic failures”.
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 dangerous facility and stop the cycle of death plaguing its ja…
Europe
Minors
Mental health
Drugs
Protest
Overcrowding
Violence
Rehabilitation
United Kingdom
Prisons across the country are in a deep state of crisis – the extent of which is exposed by the latest statistics. Soaring rates of violence, self-harm and drug misuse have become widespread in overcrowded prisons in England and Wales. The prison population remains “within a few hundred places of…
North America
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Legal action aims to force criminal justice department to air condition prisons, where 85,000 are at risk of heat illnesses.
Crises
Middle East
Justice
Drugs
Death penalty
Iran
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced deep concern over the recent spate of executions in Iran. According to reports, Iranian authorities have executed at least 29 people across the country in a short period, following 38 executions in July. This brings the reported numbe…
United Kingdom: government will not repay ‘bed and board’ deductions to all wrongfully imprisoned
News
Europe
Justice
Rehabilitation
United Kingdom
Some victims of historic miscarriages of justice have been told by the government that bed and board costs for the time they spent in prison will be deducted from their compensation payments. Miscarriage of justice victims say money taken from compensation payouts is additional punishment.
Women
Elderly prisoners
Europe
Minors
Health
Material conditions
Turkey
Lawyers associations in Turkey visited the Batman closed prison to report human rights violations experienced by the group of youths arrested for dancing to Kurdish music. Accordingly, the group was strip searched and forced to listen to nationalistic marches as “punishment.”
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Israel
Israeli authorities are systematically abusing Palestinians in torture camps, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault, B’Tselem said on Monday. In a new 118-page report, the Israeli rights group accused the government of conducting a policy of institutionalised abuse and torture again…
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Egypt
Six detainees have died in one week at a detention centre in the al-Sharqia governorate in Egypt, the Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) has reported. Egyptian rights group says detainees suffered from “suffocation” due to overcrowding and poor ventilation.