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This week, representatives from civil society from 31 countries are meeting in Amsterdam – alongside participants joining online – for the kick-off conference of a new Global Alliance of Civil Society on Prison Reform, convened by Penal Reform International (PRI). The initiative brings together a growing network of almost 90 civil society organisations on prison reform. The Alliance is being launched at a time of sustained pressure on justice systems globally. With more than […]
The seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9 to 19 March 2026. CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality, the rights and the empowerment of women. PRI will be organising and co-sponsoring […]
Statement submitted by Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and Penal Reform International, non-governmental organisations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council The statement, submitted by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and Penal Reform International on behalf of the Women in Prison Network, notes the absence of imprisoned and […]
Photo caption: PRI meeting with Directorate General of prisons and Detention Houses From 20–25 October 2024, Penal Reform International (PRI) embarked on its first mission to Türkiye for an EU-funded initiative. This four-year project, implemented in partnership with the Civil Society in the Penal System Association (CISST), aims to support the improvement of detention conditions and […]
The International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) Annual Conference 2023 is taking place this week in Antwerp, Belgium, from 22-27 October 2023, hosted by the Belgian Prison Service. The theme of the conference is “Humane Corrections: What more can we do“, reflecting the need for a more humane approach to corrections and to identify new and […]
As Secretariat of the Informal CSO Group on Health in Prison, Penal Reform International (PRI) is coordinating civil society input to inform an upcoming technical brief on violence and health in prison by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Please share any relevant research, initiatives, publications, or hyperlinks. Email your responses to tlenihan@penalreform.org […]
The 32nd Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) will be held in Vienna, Austria and online from 22 – 26 May 2023. The CCPCJ is the principal policymaking body that guides the UN in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice, which takes action through resolutions and decisions. PRI will be at the […]
In January-February 2023, PRI delivered a 3-week series of trainings in partnership with UNODC in the Philippines on the UN Nelson Mandela Rules and Bangkok Rules, reaching 150 frontline jail and prison officers from Luzon, Visayas and Davao regions in the Philippines, in collaboration with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the […]
On 2 and 3 November 2022, a group of academics, advocates, artists and prison monitors from different countries gathered in Oxford, England to discuss the challenges and stronger approaches to deaths in prisons. The conference was organised by the University of Nottingham and led by the PrisonDEATH team, with experts from diverse disciplines sharing their […]
The 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council took place in Geneva from 13 June to 8 July 2022. Over the past weeks, human rights experts, state and civil society representatives have highlighted human rights violations in criminal justice systems, particularly for vulnerable and marginalised groups, and have underlined the need to, among other […]
Finalists of the ‘Capstone Project’ research competition, implemented by Penal Reform International (PRI) with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Kazakhstan, presented their research projects on 14 July 2020. This year, due to the COVID-19 related restrictions in Kazakhstan, students of M.Utemissov West Kazakhstan State University presented their research […]
A new briefing, Coronavirus: Preventing harm and human rights violations in criminal justice systems, highlights the impact of responses to COVID-19 on people in detention – amounting to 11 million people – who have been left behind, ignored or forgotten. Penal Reform International exposes a lack of systematic testing and data collection in prisons across the globe, which means unknown numbers of people in detention and staff are falling ill and dying […]
Yesterday marked an important milestone for prison systems across Europe: the revised set of European Prison Rules (EPR) were adopted by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. The Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) and Penal Reform International (PRI) welcome this important revision of the rules (and their commentary). It is instrumental that […]
