February 2017

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February 13, 2017

South Africa: increase in number of 'lifers' keeps jail system topped up

News

South Africa

South Africa’s prisons are fast filling up with “lifers”, most of them sentenced to time behind bars for murder, violent robbery and rape.

February 13, 2017

UK: prison 'culture change' needed to prevent suicides

News

Suicide United Kingdom

A culture change in the penal system is needed to stop the rising number of suicides in prisons, according to a new report. Campaigners say a “profound” shift is needed to move from a primarily punitive approach to one centred around rehabilitation and recovery.

February 13, 2017

Russia orders prison inmate on hunger strike to pay his own medical costs

News

Asia Europe Russia

Rusia has ordered a prisoner to pay his own medical costs after he went on hunger strike over jail conditions, his lawyer said today, a move that could curb protests against poor treatment of convicts.

February 12, 2017

UK: government to enshrine ministerial duty to rehabilitate prisoners into law for the first time

News

United Kingdom

Liz Truss says she wants the prison population to go down but ‘for the right reasons’. The Government will for the first time enshrine into law an explicit duty for the Justice Secretary to ensure that prisons are places of rehabilitation rather than just punishment.

February 12, 2017

UK: HMP Northumberland prison officer: 'We have lost control of the jail'

News

United Kingdom

A prison officer at HMP Northumberland has told an undercover reporter ‘we have lost control of the jail’, as shocking footage reveals major lapses of security, intoxicated prisoners and beleaguered staff. In tonight’s episode of BBC Panorama, a journalist experiences life inside the Acklington-bas…

February 12, 2017

USA: Guantánamo prison chief says he has no say in Trump policy

News

United States

The prison commander said Sunday he has neither seen nor wants a say on any coming Trump administration executive order that will drive policy on law of war detention here. “Nobody’s asked for my opinion,” Rear Adm. Peter J. Clarke said at a news conference. A reporter asked the 16th commander of t…

February 12, 2017

United Kingdom: half of Scottish prison deaths in the last five years remain "unexplained"

News

Netherlands

Since 2013 64 people have died in Scottish jails with the reasons still unknown, leaving their families trapped ‘in limbo’.

February 11, 2017

La prisión de las mujeres del Estado Islámico en Libia

News

Religion Libya

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the Spanish version.

February 10, 2017

Japan: justice chief targets Juvenile Law so 18-year-olds can be charged as adults

News

Asia Justice Japan

Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda has consulted an advisory panel about the possibility of lowering the age of criminal adulthood to 18 from 20, a move critics claim could deprive 18- and 19-year-old offenders of the rehabilitation opportunities guaranteed by the Juvenile Law.

February 10, 2017

Japan: justice chief targets Juvenile Law so 18-year-olds can be charged as adults

News

Asia Japan

Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda has consulted an advisory panel about the possibility of lowering the age of criminal adulthood to 18 from 20, a move critics claim could deprive 18- and 19-year-old offenders of the rehabilitation opportunities guaranteed by the Juvenile Law.

February 10, 2017

South Africa: law to stop detention of mentally ill in prisons

News

Mental health South Africa

In February, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services introduced a Bill amending the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (CPA) to Parliament. The Bill seeks to stop the incarceration of accused persons who are mentally ill or intellectually disabled in prisons.

February 10, 2017

Chile: prison guards "turn guns on prisoners"

News

Chile

Violence broke out between prisoners and guards in the Colina II prison in the north of Chile’s capital Santiago on February 1. Dozens of people were wounded. But was it really an uprising on the part of prisoners?

February 10, 2017

Haiti : 3 prisonniers meurent de faim dans la prison des Cayes

News

Central America and the Caribbean Haiti

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

February 9, 2017

Netherlands: Dutch get creative to solve a prison problem

News

Europe Netherlands

The Netherlands has a problem many countries can only dream of: a shortage of prison inmates. While countries like Belgium, Britain, Haiti, Italy, the United States and Venezuela have grappled with prison overcrowding, the Netherlands has such a surplus of unused cells that it has rented some of it…

February 9, 2017

France : à Melun, une mobilisation militante derrière les barreaux

News

Europe France

This article is not available in English. If you wish you can consult the French version.

February 9, 2017

Colombia : Colombia's Mirror: War and Drug Trafficking in the Prison System

News

South America Drugs Colombia

Colombia’s prisons are a reflection of the multiple conflicts that have plagued the country for the last half-century. Paramilitaries, guerrillas and drug trafficking groups have vied for control of the jails where they can continue to manage their operations on the outside. Instead of corralling t…

February 9, 2017

Unrestricted access: Australia to allow UN inspection of prisons and detention centres to stamp out torture

News

Oceania Torture Australia

Independent inspections at youth prisons or immigration detention centres will be permitted after the Turnbull government pledged to ratify a United Nations treaty in a bid to stamp out torture.

February 8, 2017

France : nous devons regarder en face notre responsabilité vis-à-vis des bébés qui grandissent en prison

News

Europe France

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

February 8, 2017

Netherlands (Sint Maarten): inmates file injunction against Justice Minister

News

Netherlands

The Inmates Association with lawyer Sjamira Roseburg of Sulvaran and Peterson law firm is taking Government to court because the safety of the inmates at the Pointe Blanche prison cannot be guaranteed and the living conditions are terrible, according to Roseburg on Tuesday.

February 8, 2017

Taiwan’s first solar power prison

News

Asia Taiwan

Taiwan’s first renewable energy prison is set to begin generating power this year, with an estimated capacity of one million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year.

February 8, 2017

Tunisie : Reportage - Jihed, 15 ans en détention depuis 369 jours

News

Africa Tunisia

This article is not available in English. If you wish, you can consult the French version.

February 7, 2017

Hungary to build eight new prisons until summer 2018

News

Facilities Hungary

Eight new penitentiary facilities of European standard will be constructed in Hungary until the summer of 2018, Tamás Tóth, head of the Hungarian Prison Service told news agency MTI.

February 7, 2017

Almost 90% of inmates study or work in Hungarian prisons

News

Hungary

More than 10,000 of Hungary’s prison inmates, or 88 percent, spend their sentence studying or working, national prison chief Tamás Tóth told a press conference on Tuesday.

February 7, 2017

Up to 13,000 secretly hanged in Syrian jail, says Amnesty

News

Middle East Syria

Thousands of other opponents of Assad died from torture and starvation at Saydnaya prison, witness reports suggest. As many as 13,000 opponents of Bashar al-Assad were secretly hanged in one of Syria’s most infamous prisons in the first five years of the country’s civil war as part of an exterminat…