The Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR) at Birkbeck, University of London has published a report revealing vast disparities between countries in their approaches to criminal sentencing, with important implications for justice reform.
Professor Mike Hough, Emeritus Professor and Founder of Birkbeck’s Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR) explains how thousands of prisoners are still facing injustice, ten years after IPPs’ failings were first exposed, and endorses latest demands for action.
We are compiling a list of news articles, guidance and other resources from around the world on COVID-19 and prisons. This will be updated regularly.
Online panel discussion & questions: hosted by Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image and the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, School of Law, Birkbeck.
An article by Catherine Heard on the impacts of COVID-19 on prison populations and wider justice systems worldwide has been published in a special, open access issue of the American journal Victims & Offenders.
In this searing documentary film, former prisoners, prison guard whistle-blowers and an investigative journalist paint a shocking picture of South Africa's first privatized prison, Mangaung, in Bloemfontein.
Catherine Heard, Director of ICPR's World Prison Research Programme, has spoken to Omar Phoenix Khan for his Justice Focus podcast.
Catherine discusses real world use of comparative criminology and our project "Understanding and reducing the use of imprisonment in ten countries."
You can listen to the podcast here:
Apple Podcasts: http://tinyurl.com/JF-Apple
Spotify: http://tinyurl.com/JF-Spotify
Since its launch in September 2000, the World Prison Brief (hosted and published by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, at Birkbeck) has become a gem of a resource – a completely unique database, giving open access to a wealth of information on prison systems worldwide. It now provides data on almost every country in the world. With a website visited over a million times a year and data relied on by policy makers, journalists, researchers, international agencies, NGOs and activists across the world, the Brief has gone from strength to strength.
It’s 20 years today since the World Prison Brief (WPB) website was launched.
Sentencing people who are convicted of a criminal offence is complex business. The sentencing policy and practice of any given country has a significant impact on prison population and overcrowding rates, and is closely linked with the ability to provide safe, humane prison conditions in line with international standards like the UN Nelson Mandela Rules. In this blog, written for Penal Reform International, Catherine Heard, Director of the World Prison Research Programme at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, explores sentencing trends (and disparities) based on a study of ten countries.