This year
Incarcerated for life
Analysis
Inside Outside
Africa
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Long-term prisoners
Prison Insider, represented by Clara Grisot, contributed twelve compositions to the book InsideOutside to articulate, in a few words, the current challenges of prison life. First piece: life imprisonment.
Minors
Oceania
Material conditions
Facilities
Australia
Youth detainees have no air conditioning in their cells at Casuarina Prison’s Unit 18. Temperatures have hit upwards of 40 degrees Celsius in parts of Perth this week. There are fresh calls for Unit 18 to be closed immediately, with authorities yet to answer questions about what else is being done…
Europe
Material conditions
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
The head of the Scottish Prison Service Teresa Medhurst has said the jails are too full and she may soon have to say “enough is enough, we cannot take any more”.
Europe
Discipline
Mental health
United Kingdom
Independent Monitoring Board says jails in England using segregation too often as a way of managing inmates
Asia
Justice
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Torture
Pakistan
Pakistan’s prisons remain terribly overcrowded and under-resourced, and nascent efforts at progressive reform are stymied by ingrained attitudes of discrimination, including against religious and ethnic minorities.
Asia
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
North Korea
“There’s not much space inside the cells for each crew, so prisoners sleep very close together, with one person’s feet brushing against another’s head,” a source told Daily NK.
Africa
Health
Material conditions
South Sudan
Dozens of inmates at the Wau Central Prison in Western Bahr el Ghazal State are suffering from an unknown disease outbreak. Inmates at the facility said they have been suffering from the mysterious disease, characterized by itching and body pains, since December last year.
North America
Health
Material conditions
United States
Decarceration advocates are fighting to free older inmates as temperatures soar to deadlier heights.
Europe
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Belgium
Belgian prison staff walked out on strike for 24 hours as part of a joint trade union front, citing overcrowding and “deplorable conditions” for prisoners.
Belgium: diverging pathways
Interview
Europe
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Alternatives
Belgium
In recent years, authorities have followed a policy of constructing new ‘mega-prisons’. At the same time, the prison estate has welcomed the creation of smaller facilities. The simultaneous development of these opposing approaches raises a number of questions.