Multimedia
The spread of infectious diseases is a serious problem in prison systems worldwide, with prisoners often many times more likely to be living with Tuberculosis, HIV or hepatitis than a person in the community. Alongside the generally poor and unsanitary conditions prevalent in prisons, one major route to infection is unsafe injecting drug use. Yet […]
Languages: English
Submission
This submission responds to a call for information by the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice for their report on safety and security. Within this broad area of research, the UN Working Group stated they intend to address ‘equality and non-discrimination in the enjoyment of the […]
Languages: English
Multimedia
Prisoners are put in solitary confinement – for days, and sometimes for months and years, in most countries. In the USA, the American Civil Liberties Union has estimated that some 80,000 prisoners are housed in some form of isolation. However, the dangers of solitary confinement are increasingly recognised. Not only to the mental health of the individual, […]
Languages: English
Submission
The enforcement of overly punitive laws for drug offences has not only proven ineffective in curbing the production, trafficking, and consumption of illicit substances, but had many negative consequences, including overloading criminal justice systems, overwhelming the courts, fuelling prison overcrowding and exacerbating health problems. Focusing already limited resources on low-level offenders and drug users has […]
Languages: English
Multimedia
In this last of our expert guest blogs for our anniversary year, Luciana Pol, Senior Fellow on Security and Human Rights at Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) in Argentina welcomes initiatives in several Latin American countries to start to recalibrate the criminal justice response to drugs and welcomes the inclusion of human rights […]
Languages: English
Multimedia
The number of older prisoners in prison populations is growing in many countries, in part due to ageing populations and often in part to punitive sentencing policies. However, older prisoners are more likely than their peers in the community to be disabled, to have multiple, costly chronic health conditions, and experience age-related cognitive impairments including […]
Languages: English
Multimedia
In many countries around the world, the number of older people in prison is increasing steadily. In the fifth expert blog in our anniversary series, Bridget Sleap, Senior Rights Policy Adviser at HelpAge International, outlines some of the challenges that older prisoners face in prisons, which – whether in terms of their lay-out, regime, healthcare provision […]
Languages: English
Submission
This statement will be delivered by PRI at the OSCE’s 2014 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, during the dedicated session to ‘Violence against women belonging to vulnerable groups’ on 26 September 2014. PRI highlights that the majority of women in detention are convicted of non-violent crimes that are linked to poverty, and those convicted of violent crimes are often victims […]
Languages: English
Submission
Submission addressed to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for its examination of Georgia in the forthcoming 58th Session in July 2014. The submission specifically addresses the following areas, relating to Articles 2, 5, 12 and 16 of the Convention: violence against women disproportionate sanctions of women convicted of drug-related offences rehabilitation for women prisoners […]
Languages: English
Report
Between June 2010 and June 2013, PRI’s South Caucasus office implemented a three-year programme, funded by the Open Society Foundations, to address the overuse of imprisonment in Georgia and to reduce chronic overcrowding in Georgian prisons. Over the project period, the prison population of Georgia fell by 60% from 23,114 prisoners in 2010 to only 9,185 in […]
Languages: English