News
Children – not terrorists! Bringing children home from ISIL
An estimated 4640 children travelled to Iraq or Syria, either alone or with their families, to join the so-called Islamic State (ISIL). Since the fall of the terrorist group, many of them live in displacement camps under deplorable conditions. They have not only been victims of recruitment or trafficking, but also witnessed extreme violence and […]
News
Penal Reform International stands in solidarity with the criminal justice reform community
Penal Reform International wishes to express its sympathy with the criminal justice reform community following the attack on Friday 29 November 2019 at a prisoner rehabilitation event, which led to the deaths of two representatives of a prisoner education programme, Learning Together. Our hearts go out to Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt’s families and friends, […]
News
Our ambitions for 2020-2023
This year PRI is celebrating 30 years of accomplishments in developing and promoting fair and effective criminal justice systems across the world. Today, we set our trajectory for the coming decade, launching our new strategy for 2020-2023. The decade we are entering will determine whether the world is able to sustain and promote human rights, […]
News
Penal Reform International recipient of the Open Society Foundations 2019 New Executive Fund
Open Society Foundations has awarded Penal Reform International’s Executive Director, Florian Irminger, a New Executives Fund, which will help implement a ‘vision of catalytic organisational change’. PRI joins an impressive list of other organisations with new leadership, from those protecting people with mental disabilities in Hungary to defending rights in the digital environment, and another […]
News
Event: Trends and Efforts Addressing Life Imprisonment in the United States and Around the World
Event invitation: Tuesday, 15th of October 2019 Venue: Open Society Foundations, 224 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019 Refreshments at Noon, with the panel from 12:30-2pm Download the event flyer here. Penal Reform International’s Global Prison Trends 2019, published in collaboration with the Thailand Institute of Justice, found that prison populations continue to rise […]
News
UN system must address concerns about growing number of individuals sentenced to life imprisonment
Oral Statement delivered by Professor Dirk Van Zyl Smit 28th session, United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 20 May 2018, Vienna On behalf of Penal Reform International I want to draw the attention to a form of punishment most often used worldwide to deal with the most serious crimes. This is not […]
News
We are 30!
Over 30 years, we have had many successes, working in more than 90 countries. We are proud of our past achievements and look forward to the years ahead. We believe in what Nelson Mandela said: “No one really truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.” We believe that […]
News
PRI to launch Global Prison Trends on 21 May 2019
Alongside the Thailand Institute for Justice, PRI will launch the fifth edition of Global Prison Trends on Wednesday 21 May 2019, at the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Global Prison Trends outlines key developments and trends in the use and management of imprisonment worldwide. In 2019, the 52-page report will also contain […]
News
Administration of justice: Violence, death and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty
Alongside the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in Vienna, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and Open Society Justice Initiative, PRI will be hosting an event titled Human Rights in the Administration of Justice, at the upcoming United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and […]
News
Reconstructing the Central African Republic will require a fair and effective criminal justice system
In the current context of extreme instability and volatility in the Central African Republic where the United Nations local presence has even reported ‘chronical violence targeted at civilians’; the Central African Republic government has approved a strategy which aims to demilitarise the country’s penitentiary system. On 9 January 2019, Prime Minister Simplice Sarandji endorsed three policy […]