Search Results for: prison overcrowding

U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson joined with eleven advocacy groups on Tuesday in calling upon the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open an immediate investigation into the conditions in Mississippi prisons. A twenty-three page letter addressed to Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the DOJ Civil Rights Division alleged violations of prisoners’ rights and safety, noting [...]

The Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, released Wednesday, details human rights violations committed in Burundi since their last report in 2018. These violations include some international crimes and are mainly carried out by members of the youth league of the ruling party called the Imbonerakure. A political and economic crisis has [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday held that Russia committed numerous human rights violations against Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after complaining of maltreatment. Among various violations, the unanimous decision found that the authorities deprived Magnitsky of important medical care and had failed to comply [...]

Amnesty International on Wednesday, called on Egyptian authorities to end “cruel and inhuman detention conditions” at al-Aqrab prison where approximately 130 detainees are on a hunger strike to protest the denial of family visits. The hunger strike has been ongoing for six weeks and is in protest of the detainees not being allowed a single [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday reported that conditions in the Alabama’s State Prisons for Men may violate the Eighth Amendment.  The DOJ wrote, “In particular, we have reasonable cause to believe that Alabama routinely violates the constitutional rights of prisoners housed in the Alabama’s prisons by failing to protect them from prisoner-on-prisoner violence [...]

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Madagascar of an “unjustified, excessive, prolonged and otherwise abusive use of pre-trial detention.” The law in Madagascar allows pre-trial detentions to last as long as 5.5 years for adults and 2.75 years for children. In the second quarter of 2017, 45 percent of minors that were released from pre-trial detention [...]

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday criticized Russia over its treatment of three members of Pussy Riot and its handling of the investigation into the death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya . The court found that Russia had violated five articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in its arrest and conviction of [...]

Australian officials are abusing prisoners with disabilities, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities are at especially high risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday. The report , titled, "I Needed Help, Instead I Was Punished":...

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday ruled that the Arizona Department of Corrections' (ADC) outgoing mail policy calling for a "page-by-page content review" of inmates' confidential...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the family of a man who committed suicide while in solitary confinement can argue that he faced cruel and unusual punishment, even if they don't argue...