The future of criminal justice reform: where do we stand and what next?

On 8 – 9 September, PRI joined the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF) 150th anniversary celebrations in Geneva to mark IPPF’s contributions to criminal justice reform. Over the two-day event, PRI staff from Europe, Middle East and North Africa, South Caucasus and Sub-Saharan Africa took part in discussions on challenges and opportunities for supporting better criminal justice across the world.  

PRI and representatives from Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan and Portugal presented outcomes of our IPPF-funded project, Addressing gaps in the implementation and management of alternatives to imprisonment and post-release support during the COVID-19 global pandemic, and PRI’s Executive Director, Olivia Rope, delivered the following keynote speech on key priorities in criminal justice systems. 

I am honoured to be speaking on behalf of Penal Reform International (PRI) today. After accepting this kind invitation to share PRI’s perspectives on what the key issues and priorities in criminal justice and the penal system internationally are, I really needed to think hard as to how to distil the many issues and priorities that we at PRI see – some very region specific, some affecting all corners of the world.   

Luckily many have already been discussed by colleagues who presented before me, so I am building on previous remarks.  

Discrimination 

When we look at who is coming into the criminal justice system, we know that criminal procedure, penal codes, and policing policy continue to discriminate. Some with colonial legacies, some brought by widening economic and social disparities and some with entrenched discriminatory norms against certain groups. 

There are laws that criminalise, for example, consensual same sex acts among adults, so-called ‘nuisance’ behaviours like being a rogue or vagabond, not being able to ‘give a good account’ of yourself, loitering, begging, touting, or not being able to pay fines.

These laws effectively criminalise poverty and status and target people for who they are, rather than what they have done. These then result in the arrest and imprisonment of people who come from discriminated against or vulnerable groups, and there is a long list. But they include for example people who are poor or homeless, migrants, the LGBTIQ+ community, people with disabilities, informal traders, people who use drugs, and of course racial and ethnic minorities.

Our Global Prison Trends report published annually repeatedly documents that there are disproportionate numbers of people from these groups in prison. This isn’t a surprise, but it needs addressing increasingly so. 

Of course this situation in criminal justice system mirrors wider society. But there are things that can be done to address or at least mitigate the damage from such discrimination – these include:  

• reviewing or repealing/dismantling such legal frameworks, in law and practice 
• building the capacity to stamp out discrimination 
• limiting authorities abilities to arrest, prosecute, and imprison people effectively based on their status or poverty. 

Such discrimination is certainly not keeping prison populations to a minimum, and that moves me onto my next point.

In the international community there is consensus that there are too many people in prison. This is not least in recognition of the harms prison brings, particularly when there is prison overcrowding.  

But my point here is that there are some notable trends in how governments are responding to overcrowding. 

Many rightly turn to alternatives to imprisonment in line with international law and based on the strong evidence we have about the effectiveness of alternatives, but we see net-widening with more and more people being caught in the criminal justice net. Electronic monitoring is rolled out without the adequate support for individuals to address their needs and reasons for offending – so this is something that needs more attention from all stakeholders. 

Building out of overcrowding 

Many governments are also attempting to build their way out of the problem of overcrowding. Instead of investing in new and improved (real) alternatives to detention, our global scan of open-source materials found large-scale investment in new and expanded prisons in many countries. 

In 2021 alone, at least 24 countries announced plans for, or started construction of, new prison facilities – in total, creating at least 437,000 more spaces worldwide. Turkey makes up over half of this figure, and Sri Lanka one fifth. And this is just part of the picture. This figure only includes whole new facilities. It does not include the refurbishment or expansion of existing ones, so in short, this expansion is a conservative estimate. The actual increase in prison capacity globally is probably much higher.  

While overcrowding is cited as the reason for the expansion in many cases, it is concerning that some of the plans would accommodate far more than the current national prison population and in other cases, the expansion of the prison footprint is based on expected growth of the prison population – i.e. governments are deciding and planning on putting more people in prison. 

We also found a general trend for new prisons to be bigger, or even the biggest yet, with some countries explicitly following an ‘American model’ of massive prison complexes.  Linked to that, there’s also a trend towards more rural locations, largely because of the amount of land involved. 

Another way governments are working to reduce prison overcrowding is through legal amendments. Many of these can be welcomed such as putting in alternatives for shorter sentences. But this is counteracted with longer, more extreme sentences. Life imprisonment is on the rise, and this is something at PRI we are advocating for more attention on especially as the sentence doesn’t bring the same safeguards that you see with the death sentence for example.  

Prisons 

I want to share a few thoughts on prison conditions and ensuring that they are really fit for purpose to rehabilitate – or do no harm at least. There is a long, long list of priorities and trends as you can hear today so I will just mention two pertinent issues to add to these. 

In many prison systems, security continues to trump rehabilitative human rights-based approaches and as laid out in the Nelson Mandela Rules. 

A grave indicator of this – and a very obvious one I think – is the use of solitary confinement, which is persistently used, beyond the limitations set down in the Mandela Rules or the EPR for Europe. Despite the medical evidence of its damage being crystal clear, the testimonies recorded of its damage being harrowing and the international standards being clear, with more and more examples of alternatives to using solitary confinement – it is still used widely.    

Of course COVID-19 brought even greater restrictions and effectively many people were in solitary for months on end, and there are long lasting impacts of this.  

Practices like solitary confinement and unnecessary high security of individuals need to be addressed if we are all serious about creating prisons that are in line with the Mandela Rules, the Bangkok Rules and others. 

Technologies can help in reducing control over people held in prisons, as can real investment in well-trained staff – both strategies that need more investment and commitment to.  

Secondly on prison conditions I wanted to mention the impact of the state of the world on those detained. 

Government budgets for prisons and justice systems more broadly are already low – and we are seeing examples of them being squeezed further. The rise in world conflict, the pandemic and the economic crisis creating the perfect storm of course push the most vulnerable further into poverty.   

And in terms of prisons, the rising cost of living see for example budgets for food per prisoner being lowered. Corruption increases as prison staff are also taking a blow from higher prices. 

An expert blog for PRI on how the economic crisis in Lebanon has affected access to food in prisons is a case in point. Now families are not able to deliver food for security reasons, the prices of food in the prison shop are too high to be affordable (prices doubled) and whilst not new, the government authorities are now even less able to meet the basic right to food for many of the people they detain. Prisoners and their families raised their voices, warning of “starvation” if the quantities of food they receive continue to decline. This is just one example of many where crises are hitting prisoners. 

And this moves me onto my final point about the role of civil society. 

With government purses being stretched and perhaps a lack of political will in some places, we see that civil society are increasingly needing to do the job of governments. 

There are countless examples from when the COVID pandemic commenced where civil society stepped up, advising authorities, delivering essential items, helping those released get home, providing PPE gear to prison staff, etc.  

This wealth of expertise, determination and commitment that civil society brings to improving the rights of persons detained is under threat, however.  

A couple of the challenges include the fact that: 

1. Civil society space is shrinking 

Today, only 3.1% of the world’s population lives in countries that constitutes “Open civic space” according to the CIVICUS monitor. A closing civil space practically in this area means that at best civil society has less access to places of detention. Or such access is heavily caveated and controlled.  Less access means less transparency, more human rights violations and less healthcare support or provision where civil society is indeed filling the role of the authorities. 

At worse civil society is being shut down. Their staff are in danger and at risk.   

Linked to this is another, perhaps one of the most urgent challenges faced by civil society:  

2. Civil society working in detention face funding issues. 

Funding shortages are widespread and serious. 

In 2021 a report by women beyond walls called, Forgotten by Funders, Paints a precarious funding situation.  The research assessed 34 small-to-medium-sized organizations working with and for incarcerated women and girls, from 24 countries across five continents 

It found that the majority of these organizations are facing precarious funding situations. 26% said they may not be able to operate in the next year due to lack of funds, and 30% said they will have to make cuts but will survive. 79% had reserves or savings of less than six months of their annual budget. 

3. Much funding is for projects, and there is a desperate need to create sustainability, beyond these projects. 

Programmatic funding and institutional support as well as collaboration and advocacy can create some sustainability.  

Given civil society’s rich and wealth of expertise and experience in the criminal justice area with PRI and so many of its partners delivering essential programmes, at a minimum the sector’s work needs to be recognised and supported financially and politically. We advocate for this endlessly with our partners and governments. 

Conclusion 

I hope that my presentation, alongside the keynotes that came before me, spark some fruitful thoughts, and I’m looking forward to discussions with you, whether here or during follow-up contact after we all return home.