Blog

Protecting human rights in COVID-19: Detention Monitoring in Georgia

In this external expert blog for PRI, Giorgi Burjanadze, Deputy Ombudsperson in Georgia and member of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) mandated to conduct the monitoring of detention facilities, shares how they adapted its methodology to continue its critical work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Giorgi Burjanadze1st June 2020

If anything, this pandemic has clearly demonstrated the urgent need for reform

In this expert blog for PRI, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris says COVID-19 has exposed the urgent need for long-term societal and institutional reform and that human rights must be front and centre of the global response to the pandemic. This blog draws on the remarks made by the Assistant-Secretary General at the launch of Global Prison Trends 2020. 

Ilze Brands Kehris11th May 2020

Living in prison: Responses to COVID-19 in Georgia’s penal system and implications for how we think about the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’

Dr. Costanza Curro, a Postdoctoral research fellow on the Gulag Echoes project, has been analysing what Georgia’s penal system responses to COVID-19 can tell us about divides between the prison and the ‘outside world’. In this post, Costanza considers how exceptional pandemic-driven measures expose the contradictions of the prison itself.     While millions of people around […]

Dr. Costanza Curro7th May 2020

Less lethal equipment used in places of detention

The usage and types of equipment in prisons and other places of detention is wide ranging and varies from country to country. In this blog, the Omega Research Foundation reflects on the growth of less lethal weapons available to officers and ongoing efforts for transparency. In recent years there has been a growth in the […]

The Omega Research Foundation18th March 2020

Shining a light on the prison’s darkest corner: a human rights-centred approach to monitoring solitary confinement units

[*an earlier version of this article was first published in March 2019 in the ICPA Expert Network on External Prison Oversight and Human Rights’ Newsletter] In this blog, Dr. Sharon Shalev examines how to adopt a human rights-centred approach in the use of solitary confinement in prisons. Monitoring and evaluating solitary confinement Solitary confinement is […]

Sharon Shalev10th December 2019

A long road to detention being used as a last resort for children: a look at the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty

This week in Geneva the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty was presented after three years of research. The Study represents the first scientific attempt, on the basis of global data, to comprehend the magnitude of the situation of children deprived of liberty, its possible justifications and root causes, as well as conditions […]

Taghreed Jaber22nd November 2019

We are 30: Looking forward to the next decade

“It all started with a meeting…” 30 years ago, Vivien Stern, Ahmed Othmani and Hans Tulkens created Penal Reform International. They had in common the belief we still cherish, as stated by Nelson Mandela: “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails”. In other words, the health of criminal justice […]

Florian Irminger21st November 2019

UN reports mortality rates for people in prison as much as 50 percent higher than wider community

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report in September 2019 on the administration of justice and human rights analysing violence, death, and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty. In this blog, Aldyen Krieger, PRI’s Policy Intern, evaluates the primary drivers behind the high exposure to violence and increased mortality […]

Aldyen Krieger18th November 2019

Women in Cambodian prisons: The challenges of caring for their children

In this blog, Billy Gorter from the organisation, This Life Cambodia, shares the findings of research undertaken on Why Children Accompany Women into Prison. It is particularly timely as the Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty is soon to be published in full, in the same week that the international community will mark […]

Billy Gorter4th November 2019