Violence
Europe
Suicide
Overcrowding
Violence
Activities
United Kingdom
Overcrowding is a trigger for poor performances in prisons, says a research document produced by the Institute for Government. It calls for increased education and training for imprisoned people, and the introduction of a minimum standard of provision.
Crises
South America
Foreign prisoners
Torture
Violence
Venezuela
Foro Penal, a Caracas-based legal assistance group suggests that nearly 1,000 people remain behind bars for political reasons in the South American country. That number includes foreign or dual nationals from about 13 different countries.
North America
Health
Material conditions
Violence
Social ties
Work
United States
Censorship, threats, and stints in solitary are among the acts of retaliation prison reporters face. Busby was sentenced to seventy-five years in 1999. Since then, he’s worked as a writer and journalist, including a stint as a staff reporter for the Texas prison newspaper The Echo.
A chain of imprisonment
Testimonial
Middle East
Long-term prisoners
Material conditions
Death penalty
Torture
Violence
Work
Iran
Soheil Arabi is an Iranian blogger and photojournalist. He has been imprisoned for several years for his activism. Some time ago, Soheil contacted us to tell his story. We share it with you here.
Crises
Women
Middle East
Health
Mental health
Material conditions
Torture
Violence
Work
Syria
Syrian journalist Hanin Gebran details the horrific conditions she endured in Assad’s prisons, shedding light on the gendered violence and torture faced by women journalists under the regime.
Women bearing the weight of the law
Analysis
Africa
North America
Central America and the Caribbean
South America
Women
Asia
Europe
LGBTQI
Oceania
Access to legal rights
Justice
Drugs
Death penalty
Violence
More and more women across the world are being imprisoned, mostly for minor, non-violent offences. What discriminatory and punitive logic is being applied? What is being done to fight back against it?
Türkiye: broken spirits
Testimonial
Women
Europe
Mental health
Suicide
Violence
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’
News
Europe
Long-term prisoners
Justice
Mental health
Suicide
Violence
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.
North America
LGBTQI
Health
Mental health
Violence
Social ties
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.
Africa
Crises
Women
Violence
Congo - Kinshasa
Hundreds of women were raped and burned alive during the chaos after a Rwandan-backed rebel group entered the Congolese city of Goma. Women were attacked in their wing inside Goma’s Munzenze prison during a mass jailbreak, according to a senior UN official.
Europe
Justice
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
United Kingdom
Complaints to the ombudsman in the year ending March 2024 - a period during which the Tories freed thousands of incarcerated people early to avoid running out of space—hit 4,575, the highest number since before the pandemic.
Women
Europe
Foreign prisoners
Justice
Health
Drugs
Material conditions
Suicide
Violence
Malta
Alex Dalli’s prison degraded incarcerated people and subjected them to pervasive intimidation and fear, with one person describing the place as a ‘factory of evil’, a new Ombudsman investigation has found.
North America
LGBTQI
Justice
Health
Violence
United States
Three incarcerated transgender women sued the Trump administration, alleging that the president’s executive order directing government officials to move them to men’s prisons and cut off their access to health care violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
North America
LGBTQI
Justice
Health
Mental health
Violence
United States
A federal judge temporarily blocked prison officials from moving a transgender woman to a men’s prison and cutting off her access to gender-affirming care.
North America
Women
LGBTQI
Access to legal rights
Health
Violence
United States
Among the dozens of executive orders that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office for his second term, one targets transgender people incarcerated in the federal prison system.
North America
Access to legal rights
Justice
Violence
United States
State Sen. Julia C. Salazar has proposed a series of bills that seek to make it easier to discipline or fire correction officers who are found to have engaged in misconduct, including using excessive force, as well as to provide greater independent oversight of state prisons.
Crises
Minors
Middle East
Mental health
Material conditions
Violence
Iran
A teenage girl arrested this autumn for taking photos at a government event in Ahvaz spent over three weeks in detention, including 15 days in solitary confinement, IranWire has learned.
North America
Justice
Death penalty
Violence
United States
Attorneys for an Alabama incarcerated person scheduled to be the fourth person put to death with nitrogen gas asked a federal judge to block the execution, arguing that the first three incarcerated people showed signs of suffering from suffocation as the gas flowed.
Europe
Material conditions
Overcrowding
Violence
Alternatives
Switzerland
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has raised concerns about police practices and prison overcrowding in western Switzerland, citing “repeated allegations of physical mistreatment and excessive use of force” against people in custody.
Crises
Middle East
Access to legal rights
Justice
Violence
Israel
Currently, around 6,800 Palestinians are being held by Israel without standard trials, according to numbers provided by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and Hamoked.
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.
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.