Morocco’s Islamist-led government has unveiled a charter outlining a raft of long-awaited judicial reforms including a strengthening of the judiciary’s independence that have been a priority of the ruling party. The charter was presented late Thursday by the justice ministry, some two years after the kingdom adopted a new constitution in the face of sweeping […]
17th September 2013
Oliver Robertson, PRI’s new manager for our Death Penalty and Alternatives project, reports from a successful panel at the 24th session of the Human Rights Council on the rights of children of parents sentenced to death. ‘I do not think we will have any problems tomorrow” Francis told me ‘because we are talking about children, […]
16th September 2013
Brian Citro is a Clinical Lecturer in Law and a Clinic Fellow in the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. Here he reports on current efforts to advocate for a federal ban on the shackling of detained and incarcerated women during pregnancy. When LaDonna Hopkins went into labor in an Illinois […]
12th September 2013
In 2007, Inga Abramova from Belarus was arrested as she was hanging ribbons to raise awareness of the ‘European March’ campaign and detained for five days for ‘minor hooliganism.’ Inga was held underground in a poorly lit and cold cell in a facility staffed exclusively by male guards. The guards made frequent comments about Inga ‘joking’ that […]
19th August 2013
Laura W. Murphy, Director, of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office & Vanita Gupta, Center for Justice respond to US Attorney General’s call for major criminal justice reform, including an end to mandatory minimums for certain low-level, non-violent drug offences. Attorney General Eric Holder just called mass incarceration a moral and economic failure. He just […]
14th August 2013
All prisoners, including those sentenced to life imprisonment, should have a prospect of release. Failure to provide for such a prospect by setting up a mechanism to review life sentences after a reasonable period amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment, which infringes the prohibition on such treatment in Article 3 of the European Convention on […]
24th July 2013
Training on the UN Bangkok Rules for prison officials in Bangladesh provides an insight into the problems faced by women prisoners, as well as some positive progress. Overcrowding in prisons is a major problem in many countries, and Bangladesh is no exception. While there is prison capacity for only around 27,368 people, the system […]
19th July 2013
A national strike by Kenya’s teachers has not prevented more than fifteen school heads and deputy heads taking part in PRI’s latest training seminars designed to promote alternatives to prison in East Africa. Schools are among the wide range of institutions where offenders sentenced to Community Service Orders (CSOs) undertake unpaid work for the benefit […]
3rd July 2013
PRI’s Programme Development Director reports on a consultation this week with experts in Bali, Indonesia. Organised jointly by the Norwegian and Indonesian Governments, the office of the UN Special Representative on Violence against Children and UNICEF, the consultation began with an outline of the new Indonesian Juvenile Justice (JJ) Law adopted in 2012 and due for […]
28th June 2013
“Come to my office at midday”, Prof Christie replied in response to a message seeking an appointment with him during my visit to Oslo on 30 May. He went on: “my office is very centrally located but often, idiotically enough, blocked by locked doors – you will need help to get in”. At 12 noon […]
3rd June 2013