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Spotlight:
New briefing highlights key issues for prisons as coronavirus pandemic continues
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Our new briefing published on 14 July exposes the impact of measures brought around the world to curb the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and issues recommendations to prisons and criminal justice systems for immediate and systemic reform regarding a number of issues.
Key concerns include: lack of testing and data collection in prisons means unknown numbers of people in detention and staff are falling ill and dying from the virus. Furthermore, despite political commitments, very few people have been released from prisons (a mere 6% of the global prison population). People in detention remain at major risk of COVID-19, as well as a mounting human rights and mental health crisis. As PRI’s Executive Director, Florian Irminger, writes in the foreword: “Measures intended to prevent, or address outbreaks of coronavirus have violated rights and, at the very least, made time in prison much harsher and burdensome.”
At an online launch of the briefing, PRI welcomed international criminal justice and human rights experts, including United Nations leaders, prison and probation authorities as well as civil society partners.
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Latest on our response to the COVID-19 pandemic
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PRI continues to respond to the coronavirus pandemic through a range of interventions and advocacy efforts. This month, in addition to launching the new briefing and recommendations (as above) we have:
- Alongside our many partners, called on the African Commission on Human Rights to ensure women in prison are not excluded or missed in COVID-19 responses. Read our joint letter.
- As part of the Campaign for Decriminalization and Reclassification of Petty Offences in Africa, we co-signed a joint statement to the Special Rapporteur on Prisons, Conditions of Detention, and Policing in Africa, advocating for the decongestion of places of detention in the region and the decriminalisation of non-violent, petty offences. Read the submission.
- PRI’s work in Kazakhstan and specifically with the prison authorities in the country in response to COVID-19 featured in a webinar of the World Health Organization, where our efforts were highlighted as good practice.
- En este escrito traducido por CELS, Olivia Rope, Directora de Política e Incidencia Internacional en PRI, dice que la epidemia de Covid-19 ha provocado una variedad de respuestas por parte de los sistemas penitenciarios y de justicia, pero en general la difícil situación de las mujeres ha sido pasada por alto o directamente ignorada. Lea más.
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PRI joins the Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences in Africa
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PRI is proud to be joining the Campaign for Decriminalization and Reclassification of Petty Offences in Africa. The campaign works at the national and regional level to challenge petty offences that impact the most marginalised people in our society and raise prison overcrowding levels unnecessarily.
The overuse of imprisonment for petty offences can have devastating impacts on the people detained, including loss of employment leading to financial difficulties, lack of access to education for children and young people, financial burden for the family who may not be able to afford travel costs to visit relatives in prison, and severe ill-health.
Explaining petty offences in Africa: |
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Separation and solitary confinement in the revised European Prison Rules - First thoughts
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In this expert blog for PRI, Professor Dirk van Zyl Smit reflects on one of the key revisions which relate to the separation and solitary confinement of prisoners – “an issue that remains one of the most contentious in prison management, given the human rights concerns around its practice.”
Together with the Association for the Prevention of Torture, PRI issued a statement welcoming the revised set of European Prison Rules, and their commentary, which now provide greater human rights protection for detainees across Europe.
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Global Prison Trends: Blog series and more
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In the second expert blog of our series exploring the trends documented in Global Prison Trends 2020, Benny Goedbloed – an expert on Technology for Prisons and Probation – writes about the different technologies employed by prisons as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. He also lays out recommendations to ensure such technologies remain not only effective but for the benefit of persons detained, both during and after the pandemic.
In the third blog of our series exploring trends documented in Global Prison Trends 2020, Jeanne Hirschberger – researcher for the report – explains prison budgets. She details the levels of inadequate resourcing for prisons globally and the impact of this on the human rights of those detained.
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We now have the Executive Summary of Global Prison Trends 2020 available in Spanish!
El resumen ejecutivo de Tendencias Mundiales sobre Encarcelamiento ahora está disponible en español.
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PRI needs your support
In these difficult times for organisations everywhere, we are doing our best to keep providing you with quality, informative materials on criminal justice systems worldwide and on how they respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Around the world, our dedicated staff are pushing for governmental reforms, providing emergency response, and fighting for the human rights of the millions of people in places of detention worldwide. We hope that you find our regular updates informative and interesting, and we are thankful for our ever growing audience. We are proud to be part of a fast-thinking, engaged community. Please support our hard work even further by making a donation today. |
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