Featured Blog
In this blog, the authors argue that green spaces are essential prison infrastructure, showing that biodiverse landscapes reduce violence, stress and self-harm, support rehabilitation and security, and improve climate resilience. Even small changes in older prisons can help, making nature-rich environments key to dignity and meaningful reform.
2nd December 2025
Featured Blog
In this blog, Gustav Tallving, Executive Director of EuroPris, explores a key issue affecting prison systems across Europe and beyond: the role and challenges faced by prison staff.
6th November 2025
In this expert blog, PRI’s Tinatin Uplisashvili explores the persistence of informal prison hierarchies across post-Soviet penitentiary systems, structures that continue to shape prison life through violence, social exclusion and informal authority. Drawing on recent reports by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and long-standing documentation from multiple countries, the blog analyses how […]
22nd July 2025
In this expert blog for Penal Reform International, Sofie Arjon Schütte analyses the phenomenon of corruption in prisons, fuelled by severe power imbalances, limited oversight, and widespread overcrowding, creating conditions ripe for bribery, extortion, and abuse – particularly against vulnerable groups.
15th July 2025
“It all started with a meeting…” 30 years ago, Vivien Stern, Ahmed Othmani and Hans Tulkens created Penal Reform International. They had in common the belief we still cherish, as stated by Nelson Mandela: “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails”. In other words, the health of criminal justice […]
21st November 2019
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report in September 2019 on the administration of justice and human rights analysing violence, death, and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty. In this blog, Aldyen Krieger, PRI’s Policy Intern, evaluates the primary drivers behind the high exposure to violence and increased mortality […]
18th November 2019