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
A new publication published today by PRI and the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) addresses how detention monitoring bodies can help redress the balance between security and dignity in prisons. “Not only are prisons and human dignity compatible, they must be compatible.” Andrew Coyle, A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management. Dignity is […]
11th November 2013
‘Within detention facilities, there is usually a strict hierarchy, and those at the bottom of this hierarchy, such as (…) gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender persons, suffer double or triple discrimination.’ This statement by the Special Rapporteur on Torture encapsulates the particular situation of vulnerability in which LGBTI detainees find themselves when deprived of their […]
30th October 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
Institutional culture in prisons was the focus of the regional forum hosted by the PRI Office in Tbilisi on 29 April. Representatives of civil society and government from all three South Caucasus republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) were attended. The existence of non-statutory, hierarchical relations between inmates was widely discussed. The hierarchy among prisoners often […]
13th May 2013
Prisons, like any closed institutions or environments, are places where large groups of inmates are often managed by small teams of staff. To keep order and safety, prison management is strictly hierarchical, regulating every aspect of the life of the detainees. In many ways, prisons turn into ‘mini societies’, with their own rules and their […]
30th April 2013