Central America and the Caribbean
The shadow of colonialism (III)
Analysis
Africa
America
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Asia
Justice
Facilities
Prison Insider is dedicating a long-format, three-part article to the colonial heritage of prison systems. Part three: Prison, a registered design.
The shadow of colonialism (II)
Analysis
Africa
America
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Asia
Justice
Facilities
Prison Insider is dedicating a long-format, three-part article to the colonial heritage of prison systems. Part two: post-independence, a sense of unfinished business.
Central America and the Caribbean
Women
Access to legal rights
Drugs
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Social ties
El Salvador
Former incarcerated people recount arbitrary arrests and months of torture, while families of current ones demand answers.
Crises
Central America and the Caribbean
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Torture
El Salvador
A report released by human rights groups determined that the treatment of more than 200 Venezuelan migrants imprisoned in El Salvador at the request of the U.S. amounted to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance under international law.
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.
Crises
Central America and the Caribbean
Torture
Violence
Cuba
Jailed Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, the longtime leader of the island’s pro-democracy movement, announced that he had chosen to go into exile after suffering “torture” and “humiliation” in prison.
The shadow of colonialism (I)
Analysis
Thematic paper
Africa
America
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Asia
Justice
Prison Insider is dedicating a long-format, three-part article to the colonial heritage of prison systems. Part one: the origin of a system.
Central America and the Caribbean
Health
Social ties
Cuba
The family of Félix Navarro complains that they cannot fully understand his health status in prison. The opposition leader, who has been imprisoned again in the Agüica prison in Matanzas since his parole was revoked last April, is ill and isolated.
Central America and the Caribbean
Pre-trial detention
Overcrowding
Trinidad & Tobago
General Secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), Lester Logie, is raising an alarm over the country’s prison system, noting that nearly two-thirds of the incarcerated population is made up of remand—individuals awaiting trial who have not been convicted of any crime.
Central America and the Caribbean
Facilities
Overcrowding
Costa Rica
Costa Rica will begin construction this year on a new maximum-security prison inspired by the El Salvador mega-prison at the center of that country’s crackdown on crime, Costa Rica’s Justice Minister Gerald Campos said.
Central America and the Caribbean
Health
Violence
Mexico
Authorities in the Mexican state of Veracruz said they have restored order in a prison where seven incarcerated people were killed and 11 were injured in a riot that broke out.
Central America and the Caribbean
Europe
Foreign prisoners
United Kingdom
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has pledged to create over 30,000 new prison places if he becomes the next Prime Minister, and to send Britain’s “worst offenders to jail in El Salvador” as part of a five-year plan to halve crime rates.
Central America and the Caribbean
Facilities
Rehabilitation
Trinidad & Tobago
Between 2020 and 2025, amid growing public pressure and a criminal justice system in crisis, the PNM Government announced several plans to modernise the nation’s prisons.
Central America and the Caribbean
Foreign prisoners
Health
Torture
Violence
Social ties
El Salvador
Venezuela has announced an investigation into claims migrants sent to a prison in El Salvador from the US suffered human rights abuses.
Central America and the Caribbean
Foreign prisoners
Access to legal rights
Material conditions
Facilities
Religion
El Salvador
The country’s Catholic bishops have published a pastoral letterwarning of the risk of turning the Central American nation into a “large international prison” and demanding an end to the state of emergency.
El Salvador: anguished families are losing hope as they can’t reach loved ones sent to mega-prison
News
Crises
Central America and the Caribbean
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Social ties
El Salvador
Carmen Bonilla has barely slept for nearly two months, her mind filled with terrifying thoughts about what might be happening to her son, whose dream to go to the United States for a better life has turned into a waking nightmare.
Central America and the Caribbean
Minors
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Violence
Trinidad & Tobago
A High Court judge awarded more than $3 million in compensation to a brother and sister after ruling that their constitutional rights were violated when they were unlawfully detained in adult prison facilities while they were still minors.
Central America and the Caribbean
Pre-trial detention
Women
Drugs
Overcrowding
Mexico
Official data from the Mexican government shows the country’s prison system faces a critical overcrowding crisis. By February 2025, 240,212 people were incarcerated in 275 prisons with an official capacity of 224,825.
Central America and the Caribbean
Justice
Torture
El Salvador
A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to return home Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a supermax prison in El Salvador.
Haiti: the root cause of prison escapes
Interview
Crises
Central America and the Caribbean
Justice
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Haiti
Thousands of incarcerated people have escaped from Haitian prisons over recent months, but what sparked this trend? Roberson Édouard from the Centre for Research and Exchange on Security and Justice gives us the answer.
Central America and the Caribbean
Foreign prisoners
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Torture
Social ties
El Salvador
Hundreds of Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador from the United States in recent days could face long or indefinite detention in a prison system rife with human rights abuses, according to attorneys and experts on the region.
Women bearing the weight of the law
Analysis
Africa
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Women
Asia
Europe
LGBTQI
Oceania
Access to legal rights
Justice
Drugs
Death penalty
Violence
More and more women across the world are being imprisoned, mostly for minor, non-violent offences. What discriminatory and punitive logic is being applied? What is being done to fight back against it?
Dominican Republic: officials cram thousands of people facing no charges into overcrowded prisons
News
Central America and the Caribbean
Pre-trial detention
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Dominican Republic
They’re known as “frog men,” incarcerated people who are forced to sleep on prison floors, often next to overflowing toilets or holes in the ground that serve as one. Thousands of them are crammed into the country’s severely overcrowded prisons, some operating at seven times their capacity.
Central America and the Caribbean
Health
Material conditions
Trinidad & Tobago
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) is demanding immediate government intervention, following the disappearance of a water pump from the Maximum Security Prison (MSP), Arouca, and a pigeon infestation at the Eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Centre (ECRC) in Santa Rosa.