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PRI welcomes the winners of our international investigative journalism competition

Penal Reform International (PRI) is delighted to welcome to London the winners of its inaugural competition for the best journalism investigating the death penalty and life (or long-term) imprisonment this week. Following review by panels of judges, the three winners will travel to London in October to visit the offices of The Guardian newspaper and meet […]

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Indian prison officers tour the UK prison system

Unlimited visits from families, hand sanitizer for staff and prisoners to improve hygiene and inviting local NGOs to provide prisoners with vocational training: just a few of the ideas that ten prison managers from across India took back from an exposure visit to the UK this June. The visit, which took place from 1 to 14 June, was […]

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PRI launches Investigative International Journalism Competition

Penal Reform International is launching a competition for the best journalism investigating the death penalty and life (or long-term) imprisonment. The death penalty remains in many parts of the globe, while around the world people are imprisoned for decades at a time. While trials, sentences and executions often make the headlines, other features of the death […]

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PRI Board Member Dirk van Zyl Smit to lead new global study on life sentences

PRI is delighted to hear that its Board Member Professor Dirk van Zyl Smit will be leading a new global study on life sentences. Professor van Zyl Smit is Professor of Comparative and International Penal Law in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham, which has been awarded a £222,000 grant for the project […]

Press release

Kazakhstan: Prison guards to be trained how to treat persons sentenced to life imprisonment

PRESS RELEASE, 12 September 2013 Prison guards to be trained how to treat prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment ZHITIKARA – Prison guards in Kazakhstan will learn how to appropriately treat life sentenced prisoners, in a training workshop drawing on international best practice. The training, to be held on 12-13 September, will be for staff in Kostanay […]

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PRI starts new project to bring an end to the use of the death penalty worldwide

This new programme of work is being carried out in four regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and East Africa Funded under the European Union’s Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the programme started in November 2012 and will run for two years. […]

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Bryan Stevenson: Why mass incarceration defines us as a society

Last June, in two cases brought by Bryan Stevenson, in a landmark judgment, the US Supreme Court ruled that sentencing children to life without parole including for murder, without ever giving them a chance to prove that he or she had been rehabilitated, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. As well as profiling Stevenson’s work to […]

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PRI’s Programme Development Director takes part in a panel on indefinite prison sentences and human rights for Voice of Russia

PRI’s Programme Development Director, Nikhil Roy, took part in a panel discussion on indefinite prison sentences (IPPs) on Voice of Russia today. The discussion follows last week’s judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that imprisoning people indefinitely without providing timely access to rehabilitation programmes to progress their sentences is a breach of human […]

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PRI participates in death penalty experts meeting at Harvard Law School

On 25-26 June 2012, PRI participated in an expert consultation at Harvard Law School with the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Mr Christof Heyns and the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Mr Juan Méndez. Other participants representing academia, lawyers, and NGOs included […]