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Crises
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Health
Suicide
Iran
A former Iranian bodybuilding champion imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin prison attempted suicide. The act of protest was in response to what he described as inadequate medical care for his deteriorating health conditions.
Women
Europe
Facilities
Overcrowding
United Kingdom
Some prisons were still full even after the Government’s SDS40 early release scheme saw around 3,000 imprisoned people go home before their release dates, according to Ministry of Justice data.
Crises
Asia
Access to legal rights
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Facilities
Torture
Social ties
Russia
What was once a detention centre for juveniles and women with children, Detention Centre No. 2, or SIZO-2, in Taganrog has for over two and a half years been used to detain captured Ukrainians. The facility has become notorious for inhumane conditions.
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Iran
Mohammad Davari, a prominent labor activist, has been returned to Shiraz’s Adilabad Prison, showing visible signs of torture following a 17-day detention at the Intelligence Ministry’s “Block 100” facility, according to his attorney, Fereshteh Tabanian.
Africa
Women
Health
Material conditions
Social ties
Ghana
The Volta Region branch of the Power Queens of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has urged the public to contribute vigorously to the reform of convicted people by supporting them with their basic needs.
South America
Mental health
Material conditions
Protest
Torture
Venezuela
Juan, a young man aged around 20, alleges he was physically and psychologically tortured by Venezuelan security forces after being detained in connection with the presidential elections on 28 July.
Crises
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Violence
Alternatives
United States
Prisons, jails and detention centers are placed in locations where environmental hazards such as toxic landfills, floods and extreme heat are the norm.
North America
Drugs
Social ties
United States
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), contracts with a private company to scan and digitize incoming mail. The TDCJ promotes the false narrative that contraband drugs primarily enter prisons by mail.In reality, these mail bans are ineffective at reducing the supply of contraband. What th…
Culture
Europe
Justice
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Activities
Social ties
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
In Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland, life in prison resembles the outside world as much as possible. However, like any prison system, they aren’t perfect. Nordic prisons are facing some of the same challenges as prisons in the UK.
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Justice
Torture
United Kingdom
An incarcerated person who brought a legal challenge in April 2023 alleging he had been held in solitary confinement in England for more than two years has said he remains in isolation 20 months later because the judge has not given her decision in the case.
Africa
Justice
Death penalty
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe has officially abolished the death penalty following the enactment of a new law signed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Published on Tuesday, December 31, the legislation prohibits courts from issuing capital punishment sentences and commutes all existing death sentences to prison terms.
Elderly prisoners
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Facilities
Suicide
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Egypt
The horrific Sednaya Prison in Syria has thrown the spotlight on the reality of Egypt’s prisons, the files of those forgotten behind bars, and the fate of the victims of torture and forced disappearance during the rule of current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
Asia
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
India
As the Capital reels under biting cold conditions, Delhi prisons officials have suddenly recorded a spike in the recovery of metallic items — wires, coils, nails — from incarcerated people. Prison officials say that they are using these items to make improvised electric equipment to heat water, foo…
Crises
Middle East
Health
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Death penalty
Torture
Violence
Social ties
Iran
Inside one of Iran’s most notorious prisons, over 2,000 incarcerated people are crammed into cells meant to hold just a few hundred. Days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, as the world recoils at images of Syria’s Seydnaya prison, Iranian survivors recognize a horror all too fami…
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Health
Material conditions
Social ties
Iran
As Iran grapples with widespread gas and electricity shortages, behind prison walls, incarcerated people face a desperate struggle against the winter cold. In northern Rasht’s Lakan Prison, 163 women huddle together, their collective breath the only source of warmth in cells left dark and freezing…
Asia
Access to legal rights
Protest
Torture
Violence
Armenia
A 29-year-old Iranian man was sentenced to three years and one month in prison in Armenia. According to IranWire sources, Mohammad Havashemzadeh, who had been detained during the 2022 protests in Iran, had only appeared in court once in the past five months to hear the charges against him.
Oceania
Justice
Health
Mental health
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Australia
Prison guards switched off the water to the cell of a mentally ill and dying man as punishment for his strange behaviour, joked that his repeated pleas for help were “entertaining”, and then left him unobserved to die at Silverwater jail from a treatable illness that was inexplicably missed.
North America
Social ties
United States
This fall students in one of UW-La Crosse Professor Nicholas Bakken’s sociology classes visited New Lisbon Correctional Institution (NLCI) twice to help incarcerated people record themselves reading storybooks that were then gifted to their child or children at home.
Without a roof or a choice
Analysis
Thematic paper
North America
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Access to legal rights
Alternatives
Rehabilitation
People leaving prison, who are often in precarious situations and stigmatised, are hit hard by the housing crisis. But without a stable habitation, what hope do they have for building a future in society? Four articles explore the problems they face and offer ideas for reflection and solutions.