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Malta
Malta’s prison boss does not agree with solitary confinement and would abolish it altogether if he had the power to change the law. Christopher Siegersma said that no imprisoned people are serving time in solitary confinement as he does not believe it is effective.
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Justice
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United States
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison, saying there were enough questions about his guilt that she could not move forward with his execution.
Dominican Republic: officials cram thousands of people facing no charges into overcrowded prisons
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Dominican Republic
They’re known as “frog men,” incarcerated people who are forced to sleep on prison floors, often next to overflowing toilets or holes in the ground that serve as one. Thousands of them are crammed into the country’s severely overcrowded prisons, some operating at seven times their capacity.
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Pakistan
Punjab Home Department has taken a commendable step by amending the 125-year-old prison rules under the vision of Punjab’s chief minister for comprehensive jail reforms. According to the spokesperson, in the first phase, 138 jail rules were revised to meet modern standards.
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Iran
An incarcerated person has died in an Iranian jail after officials denied him medical treatment and placed him in quarantine as punishment for protesting his lack of care. Hassan Damani, 33, died on February 12 in Lajvardi Prison in Iranshahr, according to human rights groups.
Women
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United Kingdom
Prison is not a place of safety. For women especially, it is a place of chaos and trauma where vulnerable people struggle to maintain their dignity, let alone sanity.
United Kingdom: ‘I stole a mobile phone almost 20 years ago – I’ve spent half my life in prison’
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United Kingdom
A father who stole a mobile phone when he was in the grips of a drug addiction is still languishing in prison almost 20 years later under an “inhumane” indefinite jail term.
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United States
The Bellingham Reentry Center has been serving as a transition house for incarcerated people finishing up the last bit of their prison sentence since 1976, and since 1981 at its Garden Street address. The facility is the only reentry center north of Seattle.
Europe
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United Kingdom
Four in ten incarcerated people who took their own lives in custody were denied adequate healthcare before their deaths, according to damning new figures exposing the scale of neglect inside Britain’s overcrowded prisons.
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Lebanon
More than 100 syrians incarcerated in Lebanon’s central prison have begun an open-ended hunger strike demanding to be sent home to complete their trials and prison sentences.
Women
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United Kingdom
A lack of basic care lies behind a surge in the rate of self-harm in women’s prisons, according to a thematic report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor. In the report, Taylor describes a service that is failing and describes the findings as “deeply depressing”.
North America
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United States
Lawyers for 25,000 people incarcerated in Arizona have asked a judge to take over health care operations in state-run prisons and appoint an official to run them, saying the state is not capable of fixing deep failures in care even though it has been required to do so over the last decade.
Central America and the Caribbean
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Trinidad & Tobago
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) is demanding immediate government intervention, following the disappearance of a water pump from the Maximum Security Prison (MSP), Arouca, and a pigeon infestation at the Eastern Correctional Rehabilitation Centre (ECRC) in Santa Rosa.
North America
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United States
An incarcerated trans woman who underwent top and bottom surgeries was forced into a men’s facility, according to the latest lawsuit from trans people in prison targeting Trump’s executive order.
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South America
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Argentina
A total of 11,696 people were detained in federal prisons nationwide at the end of 2024, with overcrowding placed at 6.3 percent, revealed the Procuraduría de Violencia Institucional (Prosecutor’s Office for Institutional Violence, PROCUVIN) in its annual report.
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United Kingdom
The governor of Barlinnie says he would “struggle” to survive life inside his own overcrowded prison. Michael Stoney described Scotland’s largest jail as a “pressure cooker” and said new early release laws were necessary for staff and incarcerated people.
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New Zealand
Incarcerated people’ pay rates need to be increased, say reform advocates, who have labelled the current rates of 20 to 60 cents an hour as practically slave labour. The rates have not been touched for 20 years.
Europe
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Ireland
The Irish Prison Service (IPS)’s long-awaited policy guidance on the appropriate housing of trans people in prison has been delayed further, as officials struggle to identify a suitable model.
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United States
Colorado lawmakers are trying to make it a right — rather than a privilege — for people in the state’s prisons to receive visitation while incarcerated. Now, they can have their visitation privilege revoked if they violate the Department of Corrections‘ rules.
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United Kingdom
A United Nations torture tsar has said British incarcerated people trapped on indefinite jail terms are probably “being detained arbitrarily” after The Independent revealed six in 10 are being blocked from moving to open jails.
United States: health care is key for youths getting out of prison. A new law helps them get it
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United States
Valentino was given his birth certificate, his Social Security card, a T-shirt, and khaki pants when he was released from a Texas prison in 2019 at the age of 21. But he didn’t have health insurance, mental health medications, or access to a doctor, he said.