North America
From a cell to the street
Analysis
North America
Europe
Access to legal rights
Justice
Rehabilitation
(1) Many people become stuck in the revolving door between the streets and prison. Countless incarcerated people agonise over their impending release when they have no habitation solution. All are put in a difficult situation and severely affected by the housing crisis.
Preparing for release
Analysis
North America
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
(2) Release from prison does not occur the day the person walks out the prison door. It requires months of prior preparation. The transition to freedom and accessing habitation are part of a complex journey that includes tasks ranging from obtaining documents to restoring social rights.
The door opens
Analysis
North America
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
(3) The day of release often arrives unexpectedly. For many prison leavers, it marks the beginning of a period of homelessness with occasional temporary solutions. Although systems exist to provide assistance in finding a place to stay, the spots come at a cost.
Prison under the skin
Analysis
North America
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Mental health
Rehabilitation
(4) Time spent in detention has a lasting impact on bodies and minds. It leaves persistent wounds and scars that make it harder to re-enter society and affect how people occupy their space.
North America
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
United States
Moldy mattresses, 24/7 lights and constant noise contribute to a persistent health and safety crisis in prisons and jails. The Marshall Project and Los Angeles Times have identified more than 30 lawsuits regarding sleep deprivation behind bars over the last three decades.
North America
Women
LGBTQI
Health
Mental health
United States
With new restrictions on gender-affirming care, prisons confiscate underwear from trans people and compel them to cut their hair.
Africa
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Activities
Social ties
How can the complexity of information on prison conditions be made accessible and used to support change? The Prison Life Index is the result of a multidisciplinary collaboration between academics and members of civil society.
United States: juvenile detention centers in North Carolina under scrutiny for use of isolation
News
North America
Minors
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Suicide
Social ties
United States
Teenagers in North Carolina’s juvenile justice system are routinely being locked alone in their rooms for as much as 23 to 24 hours a day, according to an ongoing federal lawsuit and advocates for young people in custody.
Culture
North America
Material conditions
Facilities
Social ties
United States
Danish architecture studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen and American studio DLR Group have been selected to redesign California’s San Quentin State Prison into a rehabilitation centre that will utilise influences from the Scandinavian incarceration system.
Burying the problems
Analysis
Inside Outside
Africa
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Mental health
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. Seventh piece: mental health.
Crises
North America
Facilities
United States
Manatee county jail, which has 1,200 incarcerated people and is located on the south-east side of Tampa Bay, in the path of the hurricane that was roaring towards it across the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, will not be evacuating, a representative of the jail told Newsweek on Tuesday.
Crises
North America
Health
Mental health
Overcrowding
United States
Another person has died in Los Angeles County jails, marking the 24th in-custody death so far this year and the 69th since the start of 2023.
Prisons in the eye of the storm
Analysis
Thematic paper
Crises
North America
South America
Asia
Europe
Oceania
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Facilities
Overcrowding
Violence
Prisons, many of which are old and located in vulnerable areas, are being severely affected by climate change. What are prison administrations doing in response to these disasters? Overview.
Prisons in transition
Analysis
Crises
North America
Europe
Oceania
Facilities
Activities
Rehabilitation
Work
The climate is changing and the environment is deteriorating. Prison administrations are being forced to radically review the way they operate. How are they doing so far? Panorama.
North America
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
United States
This latest death follows one earlier this week at the same facility, Los Angeles’s Men’s Central Jail. The proximity of these tragedies underscores the urgency for Los Angeles County to honor the commitment it made in 2021 to close the facility and stop the cycle of death plaguing its jails.
North America
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Legal action aims to force criminal justice department to air condition prisons, where 85,000 are at risk of heat illnesses.
North America
Women
Justice
Activities
Rehabilitation
United States
Across the country, people incarcerated in women’s prisons have less access to higher education opportunities compared to men’s prisons. That’s according to research from the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that tracks educational opportunities for incarcerated people.
North America
Women
Health
Material conditions
United States
A woman in the Central California Women’s Facility, located in the Central valley city of Chowchilla, died as temperatures in the region climbed above 110F. The California Coalition for Women Prisoners, an advocacy group, said it appeared the woman suffered a preventable heat death.
North America
Access to legal rights
Justice
United States
The Colorado Department of Corrections refuses to provide sex offender treatment to people serving indeterminate prison sentences despite assuring them that once they go through the program they will be eligible for parole, a new federal lawsuit alleges.
North America
Health
Rehabilitation
United States
Adults and youth often find delays in getting access to Medicaid, so the department announced that incarcerated people transitioning out of imprisonment will receive coverage before their release. The coverage applies to Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, Utah and Vermont.
Crises
North America
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
United States
Over the past two decades, nearly 13,000 people have perished behind bars during America’s summer months. However, many of these deaths are not typically attributed to heat, the product of poor death-counting practices that have led to an undercount of heat-related deaths for decades.
North America
Europe
Oceania
Justice
United States
US plea deal allows WikiLeaks founder to return to Australia after an extraordinary legal fight spanning more than a decade.