Prisons

This page provides a list of prisons by country. Contents: Top; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Y; Z. Others.
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Retrieved 9 May Phillips 5 July A New Map of the Middle East. Newman 19 October Crime and Punishment around the World [4 volumes]: Retrieved July 16, Away from the bustle of the city and in the middle of Al Awir desert, Dubai Central Jail is home to thousands of convicts. Three Filipino inmates at a Sharjah prison have converted to Islam. Archived from the original on January 16, In June, the AP revealed that hundreds had been subjected to sexual abuse, including one incident in the Beir Ahmed prison in the southern city of Aden, where detainees were lined up naked as guards probed their anal cavities.

Prison healthcare Criminology Penology Punishment Stanford prison experiment. List of prison escapes Helicopter prison escapes Prisoner-of-war escapes. Escape Rehabilitation Work release. Countries by incarceration rate Prisons. Imprisonment and detention Commons Criminal justice portal. Retrieved from " https: All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from May Articles with permanently dead external links Incomplete lists from August Articles containing Estonian-language text Articles with French-language external links Articles with German-language external links.

Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 23 August , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Prisoners in maximum-security facilities are sometimes separated from their visitors by solid glass screens. Prisons in some eastern European and Central Asian countries provide special visiting units where families and prisoners can live together for up to three days. Similar arrangements exist in Canada and some U.

Although prisons are intended to be institutions where good order prevails, it is possible for order to break down in certain circumstances. It is the responsibility of prison administrators to ensure that each arriving prisoner understands what type of behaviour is expected and what acts are forbidden. In addition, there must be a clear set of disciplinary sanctions for acts of indiscipline. In all such cases the normal processes of natural justice should apply. This means that a prisoner who is accused of violating prison rules should be told what the charge is and who is leveling it.

The accused prisoner should have the opportunity to attend a disciplinary hearing, to enter a defense, and to question the evidence presented.

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Any resulting punishment should be proportional to the offense that was committed. Serious acts, which would usually be classified as criminal, should be dealt with in a more serious manner; in some countries, such as the United Kingdom, this involves referring the case to the civil police. In other countries, such as France and Spain, these cases are handled by a visiting judge or magistrate. Many countries recognize the need for third-party oversight of their prison systems.

The United Kingdom and the state of Western Australia appoint independent inspectors for this purpose, while many countries in continental Europe appoint a visiting judge who oversees prison systems. There are also forms of independent regional inspection; the member countries of the Council of Europe , for example, are subject to inspection by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

As governments faced the problems created by burgeoning prison populations in the late 20th century—including overcrowding, poor sanitation, and riots—a few sought a solution in turning over prison management to the private sector. Privately run prisons were in operation in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States by the late s. In the following decade a number of countries, including Brazil, France, and South Africa , hired private contractors to build prisons and to manage some of their day-to-day operations. The term prison privatization can be applied to a variety of arrangements involving nongovernmental contractors.

One privatization model, which originated in France and later spread to a number of countries, arranges responsibilities such that state employees control any functions that relate to deprivation of liberty while other services are contracted out to nongovernmental companies. Services in the latter group may include maintenance of buildings and other infrastructure , transportation, accommodation, food service, health services, work programs, and vocational training. In a further model of privatization, the entire operation of a prison is contracted to a commercial business or a not-for-profit organization.

In this model the state builds and retains ownership of the prison buildings, but it enters into a contract with a company that operates and manages the prison. A more extensive model of privatization occurs in cases where a commercial company often a consortium of companies takes a prison from drawing board to final operation. In this model the state enters into a contract with the business or consortium. The latter agrees to provide a set number of prison places to a contractual standard; the state in turn agrees to pay for the set number of places over a contractually agreed-upon period of time.

A fundamental change accompanying the introduction of privatization is the concept of the market model of prisons. As a consequence of this model, many of the costs of increased imprisonment are hidden in the short term. In fiscal terms, high capital expenditure is converted into long-term revenue expenditure, which reduces current short-term financial costs while increasing future long-term costs to the public. By the early 21st century there were more than 9 million men, women, and children in prisons around the world, most of whom were located in three countries: Prior to the midth century the number of incarcerated individuals worldwide had been far lower.

The general rise in prison populations has been attributed to a variety of factors. Available evidence suggests that it is a consequence of greater public awareness and fear of crime, even in jurisdictions that have not experienced an increase in crime rates; changes in legislation that leave judges little sentencing flexibility in individual cases; and police targeting of drug-related offenses since the s. It is nonetheless very difficult to identify a correspondence between crime rates and rates of imprisonment.

After the prisons came under central government control, there was a long period of decline in the number of prisoners, probably the result of changes in sentencing laws and practices. By the end of World War I the daily average prison population had decreased to roughly 10,, and it remained relatively stable during the interwar years. After World War II there was a period of steady increase that continued unabated for several decades.

From a daily average figure of about 12, in , the English prison population grew despite a variety of legal changes designed to contain it.

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By the s it had reached 30,—the level of the s—and by the mids it surpassed 40,, notwithstanding the introduction of a parole system and suspended sentences. In the early 21st century the total prison population in England and Wales exceeded 80, A similar trend occurred in the United States. Roughly , persons were incarcerated in penitentiaries in , but the number of prisoners increased exponentially through the remainder of the 20th century.

Although most industrialized societies experienced a rapid increase in prison populations after World War II, the opposite trend was observed in the Netherlands, where the prison population was halved from to By , owing to shorter sentences for common offenses, there were fewer than 2, convicted offenders in addition to another 3, awaiting trial imprisoned in the entire country. However, when sentences were lengthened in the s, the prison population increased to nearly 15, by the end of that decade, and it exceeded 21, by the end of Another country that experienced a decrease in prison population in the last decades of the 20th century was Finland , where shorter sentences and the increased use of parole and suspended sentences caused the number of incarcerated people to fall by two-fifths during the s.

The country had fewer than 4, people in prison at the end of In most prison systems, minority groups are significantly overrepresented. Females account for less than one-tenth of the prison population in most countries. Some countries, however, have experienced an increase in the number of women prisoners. Women and younger prisoners, unless they are being tried as adults, are held in separate prisons. Many women who end up in prison have been physically or sexually abused, and in most cases their needs are quite different from those of male prisoners, especially with respect to psychological support and vocational-skills training.

In addition, many will have been the primary caregivers for their children. Juvenile offenders also have special needs; they generally receive age-appropriate education and vocational training with an emphasis on preventing recidivism. The implications of this principle have been recognized by many countries. In the United States , for example, prisoners may bring legal action under the provisions of the U.

Development of the prison system

In some cases, courts have ordered state prison administrators to make major improvements in prison conditions and disciplinary procedures or to close down particular institutions. In Europe, prisoners have the right to take cases to the European Court of Human Rights , but they may also utilize national courts. Prison authorities are particularly responsible for ensuring the safety of those most likely to be attacked or abused by fellow prisoners; these include former law enforcement officers sentenced for corruption or similar crimes and those guilty of sexual offenses against children.

In some systems, such offenders have been put in solitary confinement for their own protection.


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Prison administrators are also responsible for protecting the racial, cultural, and religious rights of prisoners. In most criminal justice systems the majority of offenders are dealt with by means other than custody—that is, by fines and other financial penalties, probation, supervision, or orders to make reparation in some practical form to the community. The most common penalty is the fine. For example, in the s in England, about four-fifths of all defendants found guilty of crimes were fined.

The imposition of a fine acts as a simple penalty that avoids the disadvantages of many other forms of sentence. It is inexpensive to administer and avoids the associated consequences, such as social stigma and job loss, that may follow imprisonment. However, fines are essentially regressive, meaning that they may be less burdensome for affluent offenders than for less affluent ones. There is the additional possibility that the convicted offender lacks the financial resources, or earns such a small income, that he cannot pay anything more than a minimal fine.

Enforcement of fines can be problematic. Some offenders who are fined have to be brought back to court for nonpayment. If an offender fails to pay a fine as a result of willful neglect or culpable default , he may be committed to prison, or his property can be seized and sold, while a garnishment order can be used to obtain any funds in a bank account.

The length of time for which an offender may be committed to prison for deliberate nonpayment of a fine depends on the amount outstanding, though in some cases this involves very short periods such as one to two weeks. If offenders are able to pay the outstanding amount, they can gain immediate release, and if they pay a portion of the fine, the term of imprisonment can be reduced proportionately. Related to the fine is an order to pay restitution also known by the term compensation , which has been a popular alternative to punitive sentencing in some countries.

Instead of emphasizing punishment of the offender, however, most restitution programs are intended to assist or compensate the victims of crime. Victims of violent crime in some jurisdictions, including Great Britain, Australia, and Canada, are entitled to restitution from public funds, even in cases where the offender is identified and can afford to pay restitution. Generally, this type of program is administered by a criminal-injuries compensation board, to which the victim must present evidence of the violence and the resulting extent of loss.

When restitution is required of the offender, it often amounts to payment for loss of property, repayment of stolen money, or payment for medical costs stemming from injury.


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    • Several means of penalizing offenders involve neither prison terms nor the payment of money. One alternative, community supervision, may take many different forms but essentially involves the suspension of a sentence subject to the condition that the offender agree to a specified period of supervision by a probation officer and comply with such other requirements set forth by the court.

    In some countries this supervision is carried out by a probation service. An offender who obeys the supervision order and does not commit any further offense will usually avoid any further penalty. An offender who fails to meet the requirements, however, can be brought back before the court and be punished for the original offense as well as any later ones committed. In the country of England such sentences are not fixed in advance, and the court has complete discretion in the event of a breach by the offender.

    English law also allows suspended sentences of imprisonment for a specified period not more than two years , on condition that the offender commit no further offense during the period of suspension. In contrast to probation, suspended sentences do not require supervision or any other condition. Reparation , which mandates that an offender provide services to the victim or to the community, has gained in popularity in a number of jurisdictions.

    Many countries have instituted the use of the community service order , also known as a noncustodial penalty. Under such an arrangement the court is empowered to order anyone convicted of an offense that could be punished with imprisonment to perform a specified number of hours of unpaid work for the community, usually over a period of 12 months.

    So that community service orders do not amount to forced labour , an offender must consent to the order before it is issued.

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    It is typically carried out during the leisure time of the offender under the direction of the probation service. Offenders completing the community service order receive no further penalty unless they fail to carry out the work without a reasonable excuse, in which case they can be resentenced for the original offense. This form of judicial disposal has been introduced throughout much of Europe and in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya and Malawi. When compared with imprisonment, community service is far less expensive to administer, less damaging to the offender and his family, and more useful to the community.

    Critics of noncustodial and probational penalties say that the measures are too lenient , while proponents say that imprisonment for minor and nonviolent crimes is costly and less effective than supervised terms of community service. The vast majority of offenders complete their community service orders satisfactorily.

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    Other alternatives to prison are based on the idea of preventing offenders from committing future offenses. This practice is commonly used when dealing with offenders who have committed serious driving offenses such as driving while intoxicated or repeated but less serious offenses such as speeding. Other forms of disqualification are imposed on offenders convicted of particular types of crimes. For example, a company director convicted of accounting fraud may be barred from directing another company or joining a corporate board; a corrupt politician may be blocked from holding future public office; and parents who abuse their children may be deprived of parental rights.

    Finally, new technologies, such as electronic monitoring through ankle bracelets and other surveillance devices, have allowed probation and parole officers to restrict the movement of offenders who live in their own homes or in supervised accommodations.