Foreign prisoners
America
Crises
Foreign prisoners
Mental health
Torture
Venezuela
Nahuel Gallo, the Argentine Board Guard officer who was freed after 448 days in a Venezuelan prison said that he had been held in a facility of “psychological torture.”
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Belgium
Renting capacity abroad is one of the avenues the Belgian government is exploring to tackle overcrowding in the country’s prisons. Exploratory visits have already taken place to Kosovo and Albania.
Asia
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Facilities
Social ties
Russia
Speaking at a meeting of the Russian Ministry of Justice’s collegium, she highlighted frequent appeals from women from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, who are seeking assistance in transferring their relatives to serve their sentences closer to home.
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Cyprus
A total of 164 foreign nationals have been deported from detention centres and the central prisons in Cyprus between December 10 and January 20, according to a report released by the justice ministry. Overall, 643 foreign nationals have left the country in a 45-day period.
India: Telangana prisons see 12% rise in incarcerated people in 2025, cybercrime cases jump 135%
News
Women
Asia
Foreign prisoners
Health
Mental health
Drugs
Facilities
Overcrowding
India
Telangana prisons recorded 42,566 admissions in 2025, marking an 11.8% increase compared to the previous year, with sharp rises seen in cybercrime and drunk driving cases.
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
Breakdowns in communications, staffing and security issues show how years of neglect have pushed jails to breaking point.
Côte d'Ivoire: prisons in 2025
Analysis
Africa
Pre-trial detention
Women
Minors
Foreign prisoners
LGBTQI
Long-term prisoners
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Suicide
Torture
Activities
Social ties
Alternatives
Work
Côte d’Ivoire
All there is to know about Ivorian prisons in 2025. Key figures, life in detention, references: discover all the data gathered by Prison Insider.
Pre-trial detention
Women
Europe
Minors
Foreign prisoners
LGBTQI
Access to legal rights
Overcrowding
Turkey
The number of incarcerated people in Türkiye’s prisons has reached 420,904. This marks a sevenfold increase from the 59,429 recorded in 2002, the year the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power.
Africa
Crises
Foreign prisoners
Access to legal rights
Eswatini
A Cuban man deported by the United States to Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison, having been held there for more than three months without charge or access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program.
Pre-trial detention
Women
Asia
Foreign prisoners
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Rehabilitation
India
Karnataka’s prisons continue to face overcrowding. Of the total population, over 76% are undertrials, reflecting the prolonged pendency of criminal cases and slow judicial processes.
China: draft revision to prison law review, including provisions for foreign incarcerated people
News
Asia
Foreign prisoners
Justice
Social ties
Rehabilitation
China
A draft revision to China’s Prison Law was submitted to the 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) for its second reading.
Middle East
Foreign prisoners
Drugs
Death penalty
Iran
The death sentences of six incarcerated people previously convicted on drug-related charges were carried out in Bandar Abbas Prison.
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
The prison population of England and Wales has jumped to the highest number in nearly a year and is nearing record levels, despite the early release of tens of thousands, official figures show.
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.
Crises
Middle East
Foreign prisoners
Drugs
Death penalty
Iran
Human rights groups have expressed serious concern over the growing number of executions of Afghan migrants in Iran, warning of rising injustice and lack of fair trials.
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.
Africa
Crises
North America
Foreign prisoners
Discipline
Eswatini
Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are being held in solitary confinement in various prisons for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.
Middle East
Foreign prisoners
Health
Mental health
Suicide
Lebanon
The suicide of a Syrian man in Lebanon’s Roumieh Central Prison has cast a new light on the dire conditions inside the country’s prisons, particularly medical neglect and the delay of trials.
Middle East
Foreign prisoners
Drugs
Death penalty
Iran
According to HRANA, the executed person was an Afghan national. His identity is currently being verified. Sources indicate that the incarcerated person had been arrested on drug-related charges and was later sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court.
South America
Foreign prisoners
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Peru
Peru is weighing sending what it considers highly dangerous foreign incarcerated people to prisons in El Salvador, the prime minister said, potentially following in the footsteps of the U.S.’ deportations of migrants to the Central American nation.
Pre-trial detention
Foreign prisoners
Overcrowding
South Africa
Within three months, 6,571 more incarcerated people occupied prisons throughout South Africa, bringing the total population to 166,924 as of December 31, 2024.
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.
Middle East
Foreign prisoners
Justice
Material conditions
Social ties
Iran
Iran slammed France for filing a case against it at the International Court of Justice over the detention of two French nationals in conditions Paris denounced as inhumane. Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been able to receive only four consular visits during their three-year detention.