This International Women’s Day (8 March), Penal Reform International is publishing a new report, Who are women prisoners? Survey results from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The report forms part of PRI’s multi-regional research project – inspired by the UN Bangkok Rules on Women Offenders and Prisoners – which looks at the background of women in prison. […]
7th March 2014
This week, PRI’s Policy Director, Andrea Huber, attended an international conference in Hong Kong and visited Lo Wu Correctional Institution, a newly built women’s prison near the border with the Chinese mainland. Participants were very complimentary about the international conference organised by Dui Hua Foundation, in cooperation with Hong Kong University and Renmin University in […]
4th March 2014
In 2007 Ashley Smith died in a segregation cell in Canada at the age of 19 by strangling herself while the correctional staff failed to intervene. In December 2013 an inquest ruled that Ashley’s death was a homicide and delivered 104 recommendations aimed at improving the operations and accountability of Canada’s correctional system, particularly in […]
6th February 2014
Professor Anthony Doob is one of the three-most cited scholars in Canada and one of the top 25 most-cited scholars worldwide. He is renowned for his insights into Canada’s youth justice system, sentencing and imprisonment and for his influence on policy. He will be giving a lecture at the University of Toronto on 6 February […]
5th February 2014
This week, PRI’s Death Penalty Project Manager, Oliver Robertson, attended the annual Death Penalty Project lecture, given this year by William Schabas, Professor of International Law at Middlesex University London, on the prospects for a death penalty free world. William Schabas is on the optimistic end of the abolitionist spectrum, maintaining confidently over the years that […]
30th January 2014
PRI’s Programme Development Director, Nikhil Roy, recently visited Bangladesh and spoke at a roundtable discussion on Probation as an Alternative to Imprisonment: Legal Framework and Current Practice, organised jointly by PRI and our partner in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST). Here Mubinul Mulk, BLAST Research Associate and Nikhil discuss the prospects […]
29th January 2014
All states in the MENA region currently retain the death penalty in law – and some continue to carry out executions – but PRI’s Death Penalty Project Manager sees reason for optimism at a two-day conference held by PRI’s MENA office in Algiers. Spanning 8,000km from east to west, MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) is […]
6th January 2014
Every day about 20 news stories pop in my email inbox, giving the latest headlines from around the world on prison and penal issues. Over the past couple of days, these include: ‘Epidemic of self-mutilation’ in women’s prisons in England and Wales’ ‘Inmates need needle-exchange programs and better access to HIV treatment: study’ (Canada) ‘Anti-torture […]
18th December 2013
Today – Human Rights Day (10 December 2013) – is a chance for organisations around the world to draw attention to both the continuing violations of peoples’ rights and the positive steps being made in protecting and respecting them. So it is appropriate that today PRI is in Kolkata, India, conducting a training of trainers’ workshop […]
10th December 2013
Increasing female imprisonment rates has in many countries shone a spotlight on the conditions and policies affecting women in conflict with the law. Australia is no different. In this blog, Mary Stathopoulos from the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault looks at approaches to address women prisoners’ histories of sexual abuse. In Australia, […]
4th December 2013