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
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
On 9-10 October, three representatives of PRI – Nikhil Roy, Jenny Clarkin and myself – attended the first ever World Congress on Probation. Organised by the European Organisation for Probation (CEP) and hosted in London, the Congress welcomed over 300 delegates from 50 countries. It was a packed agenda and even documenting the highlights here […]
11th October 2013
PRI Associate Frances Sheahan conducted research for PRI in women’s prisons in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the second half of September. Here she writes about the impact of social isolation on women prisoners in Kazakhstan. The road from Karaganda city is full of potholes and bumps as it winds for an hour and a half […]
9th October 2013
Earlier this week the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) brought together 57 participating states and a multitude of civil society organisations. One of the recurring themes in the deliberations on Tuesday afternoon was how violence against women in all corners of the globe is a barrier to […]
27th September 2013
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
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