Testimonials
Interviews
Prison Insider reaches out to individuals with expertise on prison. Researchers, members of associations and institutions, decision-makers, stakeholders and individuals called to intervene in prisons: they all offer diverse viewpoints on imprisonment. This section offers untold insights and specialist opinions exploring various prison-related issues.
Turkey: a life in isolation
Interview
Europe
Middle East
LGBTI
Access to legal rights
Material conditions
Facilities
Turkey
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) prisoners represent a minority. Their protection is not ensured at all levels and their specific needs are neglected. Hilal Basak Demirbas works at the Society in the Penal System association. She regularly exchanges letters with LGBTI prison…
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Italian prisons: facing the crisis
Interview
France: a prison without bars?
Interview
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Facilities
Work
France
Casabianda is currently the only prison without bars on French soil. Guillaume Massart filmed a documentary La liberté (In the Open).
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France: reintegration is everyone’s business
Analysis
Interview
Europe
Justice
Overcrowding
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
France
With more and more prisoners and a substantial recidivism rate, prison does not succeed in protecting society. Although reintegration is one of the missions of the prison administration, it is not considered to be of vital importance. Why?
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Women in prison: a "tough place"
Interview
Women
Europe
Health
Mental health
Women and girls make up 7% of the global prison population, in various proportions. While they represent 3% in African countries, it goes up to 8 % in the Americas, and 6 % in Europe. The highest proportions are found in Hong Kong-China (21%), Laos (18%) or Qatar (15%).
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Europe
Justice
Alternatives
France
In France, restorative justice is a complementary practice to the criminal punishment for an offence. Maiana Bidegain is the codirector of Meeting my aggressor, a documentary that recounts the steps she took to meet the man who raped her when she was a child. We asked her three questions.
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“Parodies of justice” in Iraq
Interview
Foreign prisoners
Middle East
Justice
Death penalty
Torture
Violence
Iraq
The Iraqi justice system has some flaws – quick trials, non-existent legal assistance and judgements based on confessions rather than the evidence. Yet several countries have declined to repatriate their citizens who are accused of terrorism, putting them at risk of torture or the death penalty.
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France: an elusive escape
Interview
Culture
Europe
Activities
France
Natacha Galvez taught art history to inmates at Fleury-Mérogis. She is head of communications for the organisation Art et Prison. She is studying for her doctorate in philosophie esthétique and her thesis is on the creation of art in the prison environment. The following is our interview with her.
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Uruguay: rethinking the prison system
Interview
South America
It was a risky gamble that paid off for Luis Parodi, director for seven years now of Unit 6 of the Punta de Rieles prison in Montevideo. According to him, “Prison denies debate, and consequently denies life. There are absurd orders all the time.” This unit, which aims to resemble the outside world,…
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Europe
Belgium
Belgium was condemned on 24 April 2019 and will have to compensate several prisoners in the De-Radex section of the Ittre prison. Prisoners suspected to be recruiting members for jihadist organisations are isolated in these sections.
Nicolas Cohen is a lawyer at the Brussels Bar and a member of the…
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Madagascar: out of sight
Interview
Africa
Women
Material conditions
Activities
Social ties
Madagascar
Elise Maillot is 30 years old. She has been visiting prisons for the last two years. She was in Madagascar, her home country, at the end of 2018. There, she visited the Manjakandriana prison for women. Prison Insider asked her three questions.
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France: prisons and mental health
Interview
Europe
Health
Mental health
France
People with mental illness are over represented in the prison population. This group is particularly vulnerable and subjected to violence and abuse. Prison psychiatry is a sector that has undergone significant changes lately, in France and elsewhere. Where do we stand right now?
In July 2014, Adeli…
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Uruguay: rebuilding life after prison
Interview
South America
Uruguay
They founded a cooperative to mitigate housing and employment challenges. These cooperatives are one of the measures put in place to give low-income residents access to lodging through financial support from the State.
Self-management, solidarity and participatory democracy are the central values…
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Kosovo is a small country of about 11,000 km². It has 12 prisons and 1,648 prisoners, according to the last published figures. The Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT) monitors and visits prisons to defend and promote human rights. Alban Muriqi is a law graduate and a project man…
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LGBTI
The Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), headquartered in Geneva, has been working for forty years to prevent abuse in prison, especially by strengthening the monitoring bodies in places of deprivation of liberty. It is publishing a monitoring guide for the protection of LGBTI persons i…
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Books written by Brigitte Brami carry an impression of walls and confinement: all her works are either inspired by or were completed in prison. Solidarity between women, violence, and body constraints: this is how she perceives prisons.
Prison Insider spoke to Brigitte Brami, a poet and former pris…
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Japan: surveillance and old age
Interview
Asia
Long-term prisoners
Mental health
Japan
Akaike Kazumasa is a criminologist and specialises in the Japanese prison system.
Rate of imprisonment, working as a prisoner, prisoners’ age: Prison Insider asks him three questions to understand the particularities of the country’s penitentiary system.
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Prisoners during the war
Interview
Seven million people were imprisoned during the First World War. One hundred years later, the exhibition ‘7 Million’ focuses on their living conditions in the camps, the reality of their captivity, and the political issues they created for the states in conflict.
The International Committee of the…
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Europe
Access to legal rights
A Dutch judge, in May 2019, refused to transfer a person to an English prison, stating that the conditions of detention could amount to a real risk of inhumane and degrading treatment. The prisoner was the subject of an European Arrest Warrant (EAW).
The European legal framework facilitates judicia…
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Prison as seen by children
Interview
Several 9/10-year-old classes drew their impressions of the carceral universe. Lise Simon and Caroline Touraut work for the Direction of Penitentiary Administration in France.
They developed this project, gathered the drawings after meeting with the children through workshops.
We asked them about…
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Europe
Belgium
Most Belgian prisoners have the right to vote but few choose to exercise it. Vanessa de Greef, PhD in law at the Open University of Brussels, is studying this topic as part of her research. In her capacity as vice-president of the Belgian League for Human Rights, she took part in organising worksho…
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Rescaled: prisons in the city
Interview
Rescaled project is the fruit of the partnership between different organisations from four European countries. The movement began in Belgium and aims at prompting a change in scale for prison related practices. It promotes the use of smaller prison facilities located in the heart of the city.
On 10…
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