For the twelfth year, governments and NGOs have been commemorating World Day Against the Death Penalty. While the major theme is always “get rid of capital punishment!”, each year there is a particular issue or world region that gets particularly emphasised. This year that theme is mental illness. Mental illness and the death penalty is […]
10th October 2014
In 2009, the Red Cross started a programme in Ireland to train volunteer prisoners on community-based health and first aid. Following the course, the volunteers implemented a range of projects to improve health and conditions in prison – from hand-washing to improving take-up of HIV testing to reducing violence. PRI’s Executive Director was impressed by the results […]
9th October 2014
Denis Angeri of Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) Uganda, praises the commitment of the Ugandan government to children’s rights but says that much more needs to be done to protect children in conflict with the law. In particular, stronger measures are needed to protect the growing number of street children who should be protected but are frequently rounded […]
3rd October 2014
In many countries around the world, the number of older people in prison is growing fast. In the fifth expert blog in our anniversary series, Bridget Sleap, Senior Rights Policy Adviser at HelpAge International, outlines some of the challenges that older prisoners face in prisons, which – whether in terms of their lay-out, regime, healthcare […]
25th September 2014
This is one of a series of posts by Jo Baker on her research last year among women’s prisons and prison communities in Albania, Guatemala, Jordan, the Philippines and Zambia, with DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture, now published as a report. Although women face many risks and problems in prison, they may be less likely […]
22nd September 2014
In June 2014, LICADHO – the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights – released a report detailing widespread abuse of suspects and prisoners. Here, Naly Pilorge, Director of LICADHO, calls for the government to act on its commitment to address torture, including for the establishment of an independent National Preventive Mechanism. On 20 June 2014, during […]
17th September 2014
The terrible gang rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012 has provoked fierce debate about the treatment of juvenile offenders who commit serious violent crimes in India over the last 18 months. In July 2013, the Supreme Court rejected petitions to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 16 following a campaign […]
27th August 2014
Courts have started to consider whole life sentences without the possibility of parole to be in breach of the prohibition on inhuman and degrading punishment. But what about ordinary prison sentences? In the fourth blog in our anniversary series, Dr Mary Rogan, Head of Law at Dublin Institute of Technology and Chair of the Irish Penal […]
25th August 2014
Oliver Robertson, PRI’s death penalty and alternatives project manager, was in Africa from late June to meet with our partners Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Uganda and to attend a Continental Conference in Benin on death penalty abolition in Africa. The death penalty is often handed down in situations where trial procedures are certainly […]
24th July 2014
In the third blog of our anniversary series, Marayca Lopez i Ferrer, Senior Corrections Analyst and Planner at US firm CGL/Ricci Greene Associates, explores how forward-thinking architects are moving away from classical models of prison architecture – high perimeter razor-wire topped fences, gloomy undersized concrete cells along narrow corridors – to experiment with innovative spatial concepts […]
24th July 2014