Violence
Prisons in the eye of the storm
Analysis
Crises
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Prisons, many of which are old and located in vulnerable areas, are being severely affected by climate change. What are prison administrations doing in response to these disasters? Overview.
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…
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…
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.
Women
Asia
Long-term prisoners
Health
Torture
Violence
Work
North Korea
Between early 2020 and August 2022, there were approximately 40 deaths among the 500 or so female inmates serving life sentences at the camp.
Women
Europe
Discipline
Mental health
Violence
United Kingdom
Women are still being routinely strip-searched in prison despite promises by Scottish ministers five years ago to reduce the practice, BBC News has found.
Asia
Justice
Material conditions
Protest
Violence
Myanmar (Burma)
The 13 prisoners have been held in solitary confinement since they were targeted in a crackdown on unrest more than a month ago.
United States: youth detention facilities face increased scrutiny amid a wave of abuse lawsuits
News
North America
Minors
Justice
Violence
United States
As a teenager almost 20 years ago, Jeffery Christian was sent to a juvenile detention center in southern Illinois. He says he expected to use his time there to grow and change, with the support of the staff around him.
“Instead I was sexually abused and neglected,” Christian said at a recent press…
Iran: spreading fear
Interview
Middle East
Justice
Death penalty
Violence
Iran
More than 800 people sentenced to death in Iran were executed in 2023. The authorities have resumed carrying out death sentences in public, using it to instil fear in the population. Interview with Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Israel
Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers… At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him.
Asia
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Nepal
Prisoners, especially those in judicial custody, face frequent attacks from older inmates.
North America
Women
Facilities
Violence
United States
The beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons said Monday it will close a women’s prison in California known as the “rape club” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.