Prison Insider is an information platform on prisons in the world. Its objective is to inform, compare and share testimonials on conditions of detention, with regards to fundamental rights. Its work contributes to the fight against torture and the prevention of human rights violations.

The platform collects, verifies, and synthesizes existing data. It produces knowledge and makes it accessible to the greatest number of people - in accessible language and in English, French and Spanish. All its information is made public via its website, with dissemination via newsletters and social media. Prison Insider also facilitates a diversified network of actors involved throughout the world. Its purpose is to make information available for action.

Deprivation of liberty includes incredibly varied realities: correctional facilities, police custody, administrative detention of migrants, psychiatric confinement, and more. Prison Insider’s work focuses on correctional facilities. But the boundaries can be unclear. Extended police custody can sometimes become abusive pre-trial imprisonment. Psychiatric confinement is just a step away from imprisonment, socio-educational establishments from juvenile detention, or migration management from criminalising foreigners. This is why Prison Insider examines these boundaries as well.

International reference standards regarding detention establish that States are responsible for ensuring the respect for the rights and dignity of prisoners. National authorities must protect them from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Prison Insider’s analytical framework therefore uses a national scale. In countries or territories where the prison system’s organisation is decentralised, the various regional and federal levels and local conditions are taken into account. Global trends and supranational dynamics are also examined.

Prison Insider analyses prison conditions through a lens reliant on the authority in charge of correctional facilities. The platform does not formulate any opinions on the legitimacy of the governance of contested territories, States that are not internationally recognised or disputed borders. The presentation of countries and territories on its site is based, as much as possible, on international consensus. The display is restricted by available geographic information systems (Google Maps, ISO codes, etc.).

Prison Insider’s publications cover different legislations, their application and the way in which people experience and think about incarceration.

Prison Insider places independence at the forefront of its approach. It guarantees the objectivity of its information by collecting information from a wide variety of sources, even conflicting ones. It verifies the information and cross-references it to reflect the realities of imprisonment without hiding any discrepancies or encouraging conflict.

Prison Insider refrains from conducting advocacy work and does not take part in appeals, petitions or recommendations. This is in order to avoid a prescriptive approach. It collaborates closely with numerous organisations and networks to inform their work (World Organisation Against Torture, OMCT; Human Rights Platform, PDH; World Coalition Against the Death Penalty; Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty & Status; etc.).

Prison Insider’s objectivity and non-partisan approach should not be mistaken for neutrality: its engagement is decidedly in favour of human rights and dignity in prison. Knowledge is power.

Prison is purposefully designed to be non-transparent. In many countries, civil society organisations who are authorised to enter correctional facilities cannot share what they see there. In contrast, those with a critical view of imprisonment often do not have access to prisons. It is therefore vital to build bridges between these different methods of involvement. Prison Insider’s information production work is an essential complement to any action for the promotion of the rights and dignity of prisoners (social and humanitarian action, assistance, legal support, litigation, advocacy, etc.).

Diverse points of views and diverse audiences: Prison Insider is keen to hear from different voices speaking out about prison conditions and to be a source of credible information. Public policies and practices need information in order to be evaluated and to evolve.

The platform enables different civil society organisations, prisoners and their relatives, individuals with research backgrounds, those who work in or on prisons, and those politically involved to speak out and share their expertise.

Prison Insider uses diverse sources in its collaborative approach to information. It invites participation from anyone who can provide something relevant.

Prison Insider mobilises the following information sources in particular:

• supervisory bodies (national preventive mechanisms or NPMs)

• annual penal statistics from the Council of Europe (SPACE I and II)

• data provided by prison administrations

• reports from international institutions: the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT), the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), etc.

• civil society organisations, national and international networks

• national institutions for human rights

• prisoners or former prisoners and their relatives

• academics

• legal experts

• journalists

Prison Insider does not have the mandate to visit detention facilities. The Prison Insider team is specialised in gathering, cross-referencing and processing information generated by the sources mentioned above. It does not aim to replace the people and institutions whose missions include collecting information in detention.

Prison Insider centralises information that would otherwise be scattered, obscure or difficult to access. This work has certain inevitable limitations. It is not always possible to obtain reliable, verifiable information for each country and topic. Prison Insider has elected to prioritise the quality and reliability of information over quick production rates.

Financial constraints also influence the extent of the work. Prison Insider is a free and accessible information platform, with French association status under the 1901 law. Its revenue depends on donations and financing obtained from public and private sponsors, in accordance with its principle of independence, its methodology, and its international scope. These restricted financing opportunities naturally result in a limited scope for its publications.

Prison Insider’s ambitions are as vast as the challenges related to prison conditions are wide-ranging. Its website includes all of its publications since 2017, with content being produced at a steady pace: new themes, new countries, new regions, new perspectives. The team also performs ongoing monitoring of prison conditions around the world, although only some of this information will be published right away. The team is open to opportunities for further examination of specific perspectives or countries that have yet to be addressed. Prison Insider welcomes all collaboration proposals that would enable it to expand the coverage of its information. Partnerships, the sharing of expertise, targeted research and reports are examples of ways to reflect the knowledge and network of acquaintances and partners that have been built up over the years.

Prison Insider’s main goal is to produce information then make it accessible to as many people as possible. All of Prison Insider’s methodology and tools have been developed in pursuit of this goal.

Prison Insider made the choice to use journalistic language, with short, factual sentences free of jargon. Inclusive writing is increasingly favoured, especially through the use of gender-neutral language.

Each publication goes through a group quality check before being posted online: the facts are verified, the terminology is standardised, the writing is smoothed out, the titles are approved, and the visuals are selected. This meticulous review is a vital step in Prison Insider’s unique “information manufacturing” process and ensures the editorial consistency of publications.

The content produced by Prison Insider is available in English, French and Spanish. It is translated by a professional network of volunteer translators, coordinated by the translation team. Their terminology expertise and understanding of the issues specific to detention help ensure the quality and consistency of translations.

All content is then published online on its open-access website. It is shared on social media and via WEEK, the bimonthly newsletter available in three languages.

These productions are also used as part of Prison Insider’s awareness and training activities: conferences, symposiums, lectures, civic and citizen education, university courses, etc.

The information produced is republished in the press and used by various media outlets. The team receives frequent requests from journalists, academics, legal experts, organisations and institutions around the world to share its expertise and insights. This work is consistent with its objective of distributing information to increase visibility on prison issues. Any work or publication that uses Prison Insider information must mention the source, to avoid discrediting the knowledge production work.

All use or republishing of our information must include the note “Prison Insider – the information platform on prisons in the world”. All quotations must mention the title of the publication. A hyperlink to the source should be included when possible.

Any reproduction of images or visuals requires prior authorisation.

Country profiles are comprehensive overviews of the prison conditions in a given country. They were developed to remedy the lack of centralised information. Country profiles bring together into a single database all relevant information, collected using a shared analysis grid. Country profiles represent a cornerstone of Prison Insider’s work.

Country profiles provide responses to nearly 380 indicators developed on the basis of the main international texts on the subject of detention: Convention against Torture (United Nations), Nelson Mandela Rules (United Nations), Bangkok Rules (treatment of imprisoned women), Beijing Rules (juvenile justice), Yogyakarta Principles (gender identity), Istanbul Protocol (torture), European standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners (Council of Europe), Principles and Best Practices on the Protection of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Americas (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) and Robben Island Guidelines (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights).

Prison Insider performs cross-checking, verification and standardisation work to fill in the country profile template. The team then uses information monitoring to enhance the profile throughout the year. The result is a representative snapshot of the nation’s legislative framework and prison conditions.

The country’s legal framework and prison system are outlined using a template that includes the following sections:

• Overview: prison population, staff, etc.

• Safeguards: access to rights, physical integrity, complaints, National Preventive Mechanism, sentence adjustment policies, etc.

• Special populations: women, minors, foreign prisoners, LGBTQI people, etc.

• Living conditions: accommodation, hygiene, food

• Security, order, and discipline: security measures, incidents, disciplinary regime, solitary confinement

• Daily life: activities, work, training, religion, etc.

• Contact with the outside world: visitation rights, correspondence

• Health: organisation of health care, mental and physical health care, etc.

The country profile template is supplemented every quarter with key facts and events identified through information monitoring. Suicides, collective movements, legislative progress and changes in the prison population are documented and presented as newsflashes. This work ensures the country profiles are up to date from one year to the next.

Preparing a country profile is a process that requires several months of work. The exact time frame varies between countries, depending on the context and availability of information. Creating a country profile includes several steps. The team begins by performing thorough documentary research to identify legal texts, institutional documents, reports from civil society organisations and other relevant sources of information. This step also helps identify people with proven expertise who can be contacted in order to obtain additional information and to confirm and expand on the initial findings. The team may then need to travel to substantiate the information gathered.

This is followed by the cross-checking, verification, selection, organisation and streamlining of the information collected. This rigorous editorial review requires the expertise of several team members. External opinions may also be requested (or re-requested) at this stage. After the final edits have been integrated, the country profile is posted on the website in English or French. It is then sent to our translation team. The profiles are not currently available in Spanish due to a lack of resources.

At this time, only fifteen or so countries have profiles in the current format. Around fifty others¹ were developed between 2016 and 2018 and remain accessible online.

Every other year, Prison Insider updates the key figures for all countries and territories that do not yet have country profiles. These figures primarily come from the World Prison Brief database, annual penal statistics from the Council of Europe (SPACE) and reports from prison services. They include around fifty indicators for member countries of the Council of Europe (46 States) and around fifteen for countries in other regions of the world.

The press review, available in the website’s three languages, covers all countries and territories, which may also be covered in other publication formats.

Articles from external sources are included to complement the information available on the platform. The Prison Insider team prepares a weekly press review in three languages to provide wider coverage of news in the prison world. This monitoring contributes to promoting the journalistic work of various media outlets, with the intention of transparency and collaboration.

Comparison can be useful for expanding outlooks and discovering other perspectives, practices and challenges. Prison Insider provides a comparison tool for data on prison conditions. With the ability to choose the countries and year to compare and a selection of criteria, anyone can access all the available information in a summary table to further their research on a topic or a geographic region.

Comparisons must be made with care: the exercise is not always appropriate, as not all data are comparable. For example, different countries use different methods to calculate overcrowding, the number of escape events and even deaths. The definitions of detention regimes, categories or prisoner statuses can vary considerably depending on the country or territory. In these cases, comparison can prove to be misleading or even unwarranted.

Prison Insider also provides other formats to reflect the differences and similarities of various prison systems: the Prison Life Index¹ and thematic papers.

What is the human cost of imprisonment? What effects do sentences have on the relationships between prisoners and their relatives? What is it like to experience addiction behind bars? What happens to offenders suffering from mental disorders? Could other forms of detention be possible? The thematic papers examine the practices of numerous countries and promote comprehensive understanding by establishing a dialogue between several types of content: factual review, investigation, analysis, first-hand accounts, interviews, podcasts. The format’s flexibility enables it to explore subjects or countries where exhaustive and/or quantitative information is difficult to access.

The thematic papers are developed using the same methodology as the country profiles.

Prison Insider creates a dialogue between factual information and lived experiences. The stories shared come from diverse voices: prisoners and the people who support them, those who work in or on prisons, and those who imagine prisons differently. Testimonials do not have a secondary or purely ornamental role: they are at the heart of the information and considerations. They transcend technical aspects, putting into words, stories and images the prison conditions experienced by millions of people.

Prison Insider encourages readers to compare different points of view to better understand what it means to be locked up. Through narratives such as written accounts, interviews, photographs, podcasts and artistic initiatives, it is possible to form a more comprehensive picture of this opaque and complex environment.

Testimonials. Prison Insider encourages visitors to discover stories of endurance, resilience and change. The platform provides a space for the silent voices of incarcerated people to be heard. First-hand accounts allow us to see prison through the eyes of the people who experience it, endure it, examine it.

Interviews. People with research backgrounds, those who are politically engaged, and members of organisations offer different insights into imprisonment. Prison Insider publishes two types of interviews:

• Just 3 Questions, a shorter format that gets straight to the subject.

• Conversations, a longer format where leading figures can share their experiences.

Focus and portfolio. These two formats approach the subject through images, demonstrating photographers’ unique view of imprisonment: the artists share their portfolios or present one of their photographs.

Podcasts. Prison Insider launched Écouter aux portes in 2022. This new format has a clear objective: to present accounts, examinations and reflections concerning prisons. Écouter aux portes is also available on different podcast streaming platforms.

Artwork pursues the intentions of Prison Insider. It relies heavily on suggestion, making it possible to pinpoint in the blink of an eye the subject matter in question: addiction, the relationships between cities and prisons, family ties, etc. Prison Insider makes a concentrated effort to turn away from illustrations that reinforce stereotypes, such as a prison environment reduced to disciplinary cells and chains, which struggle to provide nuanced descriptions of what prison is and what it can be. Graphic media’s contribution is incredibly valuable to Prison Insider.