Foreign national prisoners often suffer disproportionately in the criminal justice system. They may have to negotiate prison life whilst contending with a different culture, language and without the regular family contact or visitors other prisoners may enjoy. As the number of foreign nationals in prison is considerable in many countries, the issue of the transfer […]
25th September 2015
In late August, PRI brought together members of local criminal justice agencies across Jinja, Mbale and Iganga, Uganda, in order to raise awareness and promote community service as an alternative to imprisoning people for petty crimes. Police, Prison and Probation Officers as well as Court Clerks took part in a day of discussion and learning […]
1st September 2015
‘Tough on crime’ policies are often justified on the basis that putting people in prison for longer is what victims want and deserve. In 2013, Californians for Safety and Justice, which campaigns for more effective public safety policy − conducted a survey to find out whether this was what victims in California actually did want. The results turned the established narrative […]
25th August 2015
Last week, Nikhil Roy, PRI’s Director of Programme Development, visited Mayuge District in rural Eastern Uganda, to meet various players in the district’s community service programme and to attend a meeting for local stakeholders. Mayuge is one district selected as part of a pilot project supported by PRI in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Prisons in all three countries are severely overcrowded […]
5th August 2015
PRI’s Executive Director, Alison Hannah, and Omar Khan, project co-ordinator for our ExTRA project on alternatives to custody in East Africa, attended the Second World Congress on Community Corrections held in Los Angeles from 14-16 July. The conference was attended by 360 participants from 27 countries and focused on innovations in community corrections and the […]
24th July 2015
PRI’s ExTRA (Excellence in Training and Rehabilitation) project coordinator, Omar Khan, travelled to Meru, Kenya, last month where he took part in activities designed to inform the local community about the benefits of community service versus a prison sentence for minor offences and challenge common perceptions that community service orders are a ‘soft landing’. Consistently, one of the key […]
2nd June 2015
Around the world, attempts at controlling the use and sale of drugs through criminal sanctions have resulted in extreme levels of incarceration for drug-related offences, serious overcrowding in prisons, deterioration of prison conditions, increased violence inside and outside prison, and depleted resources available for rehabilitation, education or treatment. In Latin America, for example, nearly a third of all detainees […]
24th April 2015
PRI’s Policy Director, Andrea Huber, says that the overuse of imprisonment, prison overcrowding and the poor state of the world’s prisons are inextricably linked. Human rights bodies should start to address the chief drivers of prison overcrowding – in particular excessive reliance on pre-trial detention and custodial sentences for minor, non-violent offences. If they don’t, they will continue to document […]
23rd March 2015
On 25 February, PRI’s Executive Director, Alison Hannah, took part in a UN High Level General Assembly Thematic Debate on Integrating Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The aim of the discussion was to tackle the challenges for sustainable development posed by transnational crime organised crime, illicit trafficking and corruption. Most speakers […]
4th March 2015
The number of older prisoners in prison populations is growing in many countries, in part due to ageing populations and often in part to punitive sentencing policies. However, older prisoners are more likely than their peers in the community to be disabled, to have multiple, costly chronic health conditions, and experience age-related cognitive impairment including […]
25th February 2015