Featured Blog
The global female prison population continues to rise, partly due to harsh drug policies. In the second blog of our series marking the tenth anniversary of the UN Bangkok Rules, Corina Giacomello presents the findings of research on women and girls who use drugs and are detained in Mexico, and shines a light on those […]
15th December 2020
In this blog, as we publish a new briefing on coronavirus and criminal justice systems, Penal Reform International’s Executive Director, Florian Irminger, reflects on measures taken in response to the pandemic and what needs to be done - now and in the longer term - to prevent harm and human rights violations.
14th July 2020
In this expert blog, the President of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, Joel Hernández, writes about alternatives to pre-trial detention in the Americas where the number of people held in remand are excessively high. Commissioner Hernández calls for the use of alternatives as an urgent measure to protect human rights – during the COVID-19 […]
15th June 2020
In this blog, Justice Imman Ali, a judge of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and a member of PRI’s Board explains how they managed to release 20,938 adults from pre-trial detention in 10 working days and 343 children from custody in the space of 7 working days as part of the response to the COVID-19 […]
11th June 2020
“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
PRI has launched its annual flagship publication, Global Prison Trends 2018. Here we publish the foreword to the report, written by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, a Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Every year, Global Prison Trends by […]
15th May 2018
With the number of trial waiver systems worldwide increasing nearly 300 per cent since 1990, Jago Russell, Chief Executive of Fair Trials, looks at how this emerging issue can both improve but also undermine human rights protections. The trial is the archetype of criminal justice. It has captured the public imagination. Just think of the dominance […]
30th August 2017
Photo: The terrorist suspect being interviewed by Norwegian police. Provided with kind permission by the author. In 2011, ten years after a new approach of questioning criminal suspects was introduced in Norway called ‘Investigative Interviewing’, the country was struck by a terrorist attack which killed 77 people. In the aftermath of the attack, Asbjørn Rachlew, […]
14th March 2017
In 2015, PRI conducted some preliminary internal research into plea-bargains – an agreement by which the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for a concession from the prosecutor, usually a lesser charge or a reduced sentence. This is agreed upon in advance, approved by a judge, and a full trial is avoided. Over 30 […]
9th January 2017
You may be lucky enough to have a lawyer represent you in court, but in many countries, you may struggle to hear what they say or to communicate with them. Over the last 20 years, docks, where the accused is located during trial, have become more ‘secure’, with some enclosed in glass or even behind wire […]
15th December 2016
Filming live court cases might make justice come to life, but do television cameras in a court room make our justice systems more transparent or improve public understanding of legal proceedings? Dr Ruth Herz, German judge and now visiting professor at Birkbeck School of Law, University of London, took on the role of a ‘TV judge’ […]
27th July 2016