Prison

Zoos have come under incredible assault, as places that are utterly immoral prisons of cages for animals that should be allowed to roam free

What does someone have to do to go to prison?

Erdogan government's answer to the problem of more and more prisoners is simple: open more and more prisons.

Turkish soldiers at the Silivri Prison in Istanbul, February 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/TOLGA BOZOGLU

The survey, known as the SPACE Report, provides comprehensive data from 49 European prison administrations on issues including total prison populations, incarceration rates, sentences, offences and staffing as well as rates of mortality, suicide and escape.

An exhibition of drawings by Albanian artist Ina Elezi, based on her conversations with former prisoners who were jailed at Spac, where Albania's Communist regime used political detainees as forced labour, went on display on Sunday at the Destil Creative Hub in Tirana.

The UN's Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague has rejected an application for early release from prison from former Serbian Interior Ministry official Vlastimir Djordjevic, citing serious concerns about his level of rehabilitation.

The population of prisons in Turkey has decreased by 8.5 percent to some 266,831 as of Dec. 31, 2020, compared to the same day of 2019, figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) show.  

"A total of 96 percent of the inmates are males, leaving with just 4 percent female prisoners," TÜİK said in a statement on Nov. 2.

The report published on Tuesday by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture, CPT, based on a visit to the country in December 2019, raises concerns that police ill-treatment of suspects has resumed in North Macedonia and that the authorities have done far too little to address the longstanding shortcomings within the prison system.

Inmates jailed in Turkish prisons will now be able to send and receive e-mails, according to a new regulation sent to parliament by the Justice Ministry.

Prison officials will check and record all of the inmates' e-mails digitally, except the ones that will be sent to lawyers for their defense.

New legislation being drafted by the ministries of Citizens' Protection and Justice includes a measure aimed at decongesting Greece's overpopulated prisons.

Under the new rules, some 1,500 prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes such as tax evasion will be given the option of offering community service rather than sitting out their sentences behind bars.