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In this video-interview, Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, Head of WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and Dr. Filipa Alves da Costa expert in the WHO Alcohol, Illicit Drugs & Prison Health Programme come back for us on the duty of states to ensure equivalence of care for people in detention. The WHO […]

Interview with David Chipanta, Senior Advisor at UNAIDS: “Decarceration still a priority in the response to COVID-19 in prisons” In an interview given to the European Prison Litigation Network in April 2021, David Chipanta, Senior Advisor, Social Protection, Community Support, Social Justice and Inclusion Department at UNAIDS, Geneva, looks back at a year of coordinated […]

Dr. Fadi Meroueh, head of the health unit at the prison of Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone, France and President of Health without Barriers, the European Federation for Prison Health, questions in this interview the paradoxical injunctions to prison doctors to both treat incarcerated patients and provide medical expertise on the health status of the prisoners to the prison […]

Since the start of this century, penal law, in Europe and beyond, has become more severe in the name of the increasing security risks for the State and the safety of people. In some approaches, security has become the ‘foremost freedom’ and the precautionary principle has moved from hazardous products to dangerous people, whilst security measures […]

Interview with Robert Teltzrow, Principal Project Consultant at the Council of Europe Pompidou Group In this interview filmed on 26 March 2021, Robert Teltzrow presents the Council of Europe Pompidou Group’s approach to further human rights and public health in the highly stigmatized and vulnerable key population of incarcerated people who use drugs. From the […]

“This is not a hospital, this is a morgue.” (quote of a prisoner treated in Sofia prison hospital) In 2019, the National Preventive Mechanism with the Office of the Ombudsman made a number of concerning findings about the state of medical services in the prison system. It raised the alarm that the Ministry of Justice […]

Prisons can be detrimental to health and wellbeing. There is a higher prevalence of complex chronic health conditions, and behavioural health risk factors (such as substance use disorders and insufficient social supports) among prisoners, than in the non-incarcerated population. The nature of incarceration makes prisoners fully depend on the correctional authorities for timely access to […]

Text by Alessio Scandurra, Senior Researcher at the NGO Antigone, coordinator of the European Prison Observatory, February 2021 At the beginning of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic began to threaten penitentiary systems around the world, bringing another aspect of the challenge posed by this global emergency under the spotlight. Prisons suddenly became a problem and many […]