HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/Prison Project 485 Fifth Avenue New York, NY
10017-6104 Tel: (212) 972-8400 Fax: (212) 972-0905 E-mail:
hrwatchnyc@igc.apc.org

1522 K Street, N.W., #910 Washington, D.C.  20005-1202 Tel: (202)
371-6592 Fax: (202) 371-0124 E-mail: hrwatchdc@igc.apc.org

TITLE: 6/8/93 
Global Report on Prisons

June 8, 1993

On the eve of the United Nations World Conference   on Human
Rights, in its first-ever global report on prison conditions,
Human Rights Watch finds that conditions, policies and practices
usually fall below the level of decency.  From torture in a police
lock-up to degrading abuse by guards or other inmates in long-term
prison, prisoners all over the world are abused in gross violation
of their rights under international and domestic law, almost
invariably without recourse or remedy.  At any given moment,
millions of people are incarcerated worldwide.  Their human rights
are often violated even in the countries that otherwise have a
good human rights record.

The 297-page report reviews physical circumstances, abuses by
custodial authorities, work opportunities, medical care and other
issues in some twenty countries around the world.  Human Rights
Watch provides a series of detailed recommendations, stressing the
fact that many improvements can be made at little or no expense,
through policy and attitude changes alone.

Many of the abuses of human rights in prisons occur when
governments prevent outside monitors from investigating
conditions.  In a letter to Secretary General Boutros Boutros
Ghali, recognizing this need for regular prison inspections, Human
Rights Watch calls upon the United Nations to create a U.N.  body
with a mandate for inspecting prisons in order to guarantee more
effective implementation of the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for
the Treatment of Prisoners.  The United Nations should sponsor
periodic international conferences on prison conditions.  These
conferences would be effective in stigmatizing the world's worst
violators before the eyes of the international community.

Human Rights also believes that a permanent U.N. Working Group on
prison conditions, along the lines of the Working Group on
Disappearances, would play an important part in the improvement of
human rights conditions worldwide.

Such a Working Group should:
     -  undertake prison inspections;
-  hold hearings and publish its findings in reports for general
distribution

-  provide information to the secretary general in order to
publish an annual report on prison conditions.

The "Global Report on Prisons" covers Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt,
India, Indonesia, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Jamaica,
Mexico, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia and Azerbaijan, South
Africa, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and
Zaire.

The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Prisons is available from
the Publications Department, Human Rights Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY  10017-6104, for $24.00 (domestic), $30.00
(international).
.