Welcome to Penal Reform International's monthly e-newsletter, a round-up of PRI and other penal reform news from around the world and a variety of criminal justice and human rights resources.
The views expressed in the news items below are not necessarily those of PRI.
This new PRI briefing gives an overview of what the international and regional standards say regarding the care and treatment of children who are suspected or convicted of violent extremist-related offences. It also looks at some examples of state responses and civil society interventions.
In 2011, 10 years after a new approach of questioning criminal suspects was introduced in Norway called Investigative Interviewing, the country was struck by a terrorist attack which killed 77 people.
In the aftermath of the attack, Asbjørn Rachlew, a Police Superintendent in Oslo, was tasked with recruiting and advising a team to interview the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik. In this expert guest blog, Asbjørn explains why Investigative Interviewing represents the safest and most efficient approach to solve crime and to counter terrorism.
A recent Supreme Court judgement has enforced the prohibition against the execution of intellectually disabled defendants. In this guest blog, Robin M. Maher, a US lawyer who represents death-sentenced prisoners, gives an overview of the precedent case and why it is a reason for celebration.
In this guest blog, Sabrina Mahtani, co-founder of the Sierra Leone NGO AdvocAid, writes about a woman sentenced to death in Sierra Leone in 2010, aged 17, for killing her abusive partner.
Applications are now open for members and staff of National Preventive Mechanisms for a Summer School in August 2017 on ‘Detention monitoring applying the UN Nelson Mandela Rules’, which will take place in Bristol, UK.
This report, produced by the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Anti-Torture Initiative, consists of a compilation of articles submitted by global experts and practitioners in response to a groundbreaking thematic report by former United Nations Special Rapporteur, Juan E. Méndez, on torture of children deprived of liberty, its recommendations, and on the diverse practices that afflict violence – often in the form of torture and other ill-treatment – on children in different settings worldwide.
The link between the overuse of imprisonment and the prevention of torture and ill-treatment was put in the spotlight by the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) at the end of a recent visit to Hungary. The SPT urged the Government to immediately address the excessive use of detention, through the use of alternatives to detention.
Norway: Norway's National Preventative Mechanism has published its annual report. Key themes include body searches, the right to information and women in prison.
Drug policy
Developments from the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs
In this article, 'Drugs at the UN: The needle inches forward', Ann Fordham of the International Drug Policy Consortium reports on the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, an annual meeting held in Vienna every year. She discusses how though the annual gathering may seem routine and unremarkable, 'upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the needle is inching forward in the global drug policy debate'.
Among the series of resolutions agreed on was a specific resolution calling attention to the harm reduction and HIV funding crisis. Read more about the resolution.
Overcrowding, inhumane and degrading detention conditions and disproportionate harm to marginalised groups are some of the consequences of the rapid, unrelenting growth of imprisonment worldwide, according to this new report, published by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research and Fair Trials.
The number of people held in European prisons decreased by 6.8 per cent from 2014 to 2015, although prison overcrowding remained a problem in 15 countries, according to the latest Council of EuropeAnnual Penal Statistics (SPACE).
In its Chamber judgment in the case of Polyakova and Others v. Russia, the court held that decisions to imprison individuals thousands of miles away from their families was a violation of Article 8 (right to private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Amendments proposed to a local law in the Australian city of Melbourne would trigger serious international human rights concern, said the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing. The Special Rapporteur stated that 'the criminalisation of homelessness is deeply concerning and violates international human rights law' and would penalise them 'because they are poor and have no place to live'.
On 1 March, a new project was launched by the EU and implemented by PRI in Kazakhstan to improve access to justice for vulnerable groups. The project aims to build the capacity of civil society organisations to support ongoing judicial reforms in accordance with international standards. Read the press release.
A new report from The Sentencing Project finds that foreign-born residents of the United States, regardless of legal status, commit crime less often than native-born citizens, and so higher levels of immigration may have contributed to the historic drop in crime rate. It concludes that policies that further restrict immigration are not effective crime-control strategies.
The International Narcotics Control Board's annual report includes a thematic chapter on women and drugs, with some information on female prisoners and their children. The chapter can be accessed here.
Human Rights Watch reports that most women prisoners in Brazil are housed in wings within male prisons, where the risk of abuse is high and access to healthcare is limited. HRW calls for much greater use of alternatives to prison, especially for pregnant women and women with children, and urges that prison conditions in female prisons should be brought into compliance with international standards and Brazil's own laws.
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