Mexico’s Amnesty law will benefit few

Subject Amnesty law. Significance An amnesty law that came into effect on April 23 provides for the release of prisoners convicted of non-violent federal crimes. One of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)’s campaign promises, the law was first approved in 2019 by the Chamber of Deputies. It was ultimately rushed through the Senate in April after AMLO urged his National Regeneration Movement (Morena) to pass it, ostensibly to help combat the spread of COVID-19 within Mexico’s overcrowded prison system. Impacts Fear of COVID-19 within prisons will greatly increase the risk of riots and escape attempts. Focus on the amnesty law may distract from more effective, pre-existing strategies for easing prison overcrowding, such as pardons. The immediate need to address COVID-19’s impacts will hinder efforts to pursue further justice reforms complementary to the amnesty law.

COVID-19 will hit northern Central America hard

Subject COVID-19. Significance COVID-19 case numbers in Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras remain low by western European and US standards but are probably underestimated. All three countries’ governments implemented nationwide curfews at an early stage in the pandemic, ordering the closure of non-essential businesses. However, factors such as poverty, prison overcrowding and the continuation of US deportations perpetuate contagion risks, threatening the region’s fragile healthcare systems. Impacts Mobility restrictions will reduce gangs’ capacity to extort, pushing them towards other crimes such as robbery and drug sales. Escalating poverty will prompt fresh outbreaks of violence and popular unrest once the lockdowns come to an end. External support for both fiscal accounts and balances of payments will be key to overcoming the crisis. Corruption opportunities will increase as governments enact fiscal measures to address the crisis and countries receive multilateral aid.

Las sentencias piloto del TEDH sobre los tratos inhumanos y degradantes en las cárceles europeas = Pilot judgment of the ECtHR on inhuman and degrading treatment in European prisons

Resumen: La prohibición de la tortura y los tratos inhumanos y degradantes es absoluta y está contenida en todos los tratados y convenios sobre derechos humanos. Sin embargo, en algunas cárceles de Europa se está produciendo una violación sistemática de lo dispuesto en el artículo 3 del Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos (CEDH). En este artículo se explica en qué consiste el procedimiento de las sentencias piloto del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos y se analizan las sentencias piloto sobre el estado de las cárceles que el Tribunal ha dictado hasta el momento. El principal objetivo es tratar de determinar si las sentencias piloto han resultado ser un instrumento útil a la hora de mejorar la eficacia de la prohibición de la tortura y otros tratos inhumanos o degradantes, contenida en el artículo 3 del CEDH, en el ámbito carcelario.Palabras clave: Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos, sentencia piloto, sobrepoblación carcelaria, prisiones, condiciones de reclusión, prohibición de la tortura, artículo 3 del Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos.Abstract: The prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute and is present in all human rights treaties and conventions. However, in some European prisons there is a systematic violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The European Court of Human Rights uses the pilot judgment procedure to impose on the States the adoption of general measures to put an end to a systemic or structural problem. In this article I will explain the pilot judgment procedure and I will analyze the pilot judgments on prison conditions. The main objective is to determine whether pilot sentences are a useful instrument to improve the effectiveness of article 3 of the ECHR.Keywords: European Court of Human Rights, pilot judgment, prison overcrowding, prisons, prison conditions, prohibition of torture, article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights

French early release: McProcedures and McRe-entry

Before 2009, the main rationales of the French early release system were reinsertion and resocialisation; the prevention of reoffending, the interests of society; and the rights of victims. With the chronic prison overcrowding and the cost for public finances a radical change occurred with three law reforms (2009, 2014, 2019). The new main – if not unique – objective is to free as many prisoners as possible, this, as quickly as possible, without through the gate programmes that address prisoners’ release needs. As a research conducted from 2014 to 2016 shows ‘bad fast’ procedures are rejected by both reentry judges (they lack ‘moral alignment’) and with prisoners (they are perceived as unfair and unsupportive). This article will deal with these subjects by drawing upon theories of innovation diffusion and legitimacy of justice.

Using laws to further public health causes: the Healthy Prisons Agenda

In this commentary, we propose using laws in implementing the Healthy Prisons Agenda. We evaluate the efficacy of laws in tackling health inequalities in prisons, provide recommendations on how states can uphold their international commitments that safeguard prisoners’ right to healthcare, and frame prisons as health-promoting settings. We also assess the challenges that can thwart this proposal, such as the non-binding nature of international obligations, global prison overcrowding and the dependency on prison governors and staff for implementation of the Agenda. The commentary concludes by recommending further evaluation of our proposal and testing its potential generalisability to other health-promotion agendas.

Determinants of Intercountry Prison Incarceration Rates and Overcrowding in Latin America and the Caribbean

Research on prison population rates and prison overcrowding has largely been limited to U.S. populations. While these studies offer valuable insight into the broader-level factors affecting rates of imprisonment, along with correlates associated with pervasive levels of crowding, less is known about the macro-level causes of elevated imprisonment rates and increasingly high levels of prison crowding across Latin America and the Caribbean. A modified version of negative binomial random-effects model with between- and within-country transformations of time-varying covariates was utilized to test the influence of political, social, and economic factors on the prison population rate between countries and within countries over multiple time points. An ordinary least squares regression model was adopted to analyze the extent to which countries’ levels of political stability, government effectiveness, intentional homicide rates, and unemployment are related to national levels of prison overcrowding percentages. Findings demonstrate that government effectiveness and political stability are significantly and positively associated with increased prison population rates both between countries and within countries over time, while government effectiveness is simultaneously negatively related to prison overcrowding across countries.