An old idea readapted

Prison Insider is a project that aims to provide "a platform for information, resources and exchange of prisons in the world", where more than 10 million people are incarcerated today. This new site for information and discussion about the world’s prisons, supported by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), wants to denounce as strongly as possible the miserable situation faced by millions of people deprived their freedom.

"What we aim to do is make available information and data about detention conditions, country by country, translated into three languages," says Bernard Bolze, co-founder of the project.

Bolze has great experience in the field of prisons and detainees' rights, as he was among the founders of the International Observatory of Prisons (OIP) — an organization dedicated to defending the rights of prisoners in the world (whose international secretariat was dissolved before 2000, whereas its French section still exists) — and wanted to re-adapt the "old idea" of monitoring prison conditions and detainees' rights to the current time, making use of the great potentialities of the Internet.

A collaborative effort

Bolze has rallied the energies of a team of academics, NGO experts, lawyers, translators and graphic designers to design and build a website allowing everyone to acquire clear and reliable information on how life is in the prisons of different countries around the world.

Antigone has participated to the project since its inception and provided the country profile for Italy. Contributors from all over the world have done the same with their countries.

In addition to the country profiles, the website provides other useful resources such as tools (e.g., what to do in case of arrest), web-reviews and academic papers. Most of this material is freely available online, but there are parts of the website that are only accessible to subscribers.

"The issue of prisoner rights doesn't inspire courage among policy makers. Apart from a few welcome exceptions, there is little public or corporate support to fund issues concerning ordinary prisoners. We have enough support to gain our independence and it is now up to us to continue the fight. Subscribe and have your friends and family subscribe. Subscription is a small gesture but together we can gather a force capable of fighting poor prisoner treatment and injustice," explains Bolze.

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