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Haitian prison

If international minimum standards of about four square metres for every prisoner were met, the National Penitentiary would hold a little more than 400 inmates. On the day Maclean's visits the prison, there are 3,331 men jailed inside. Most, at least 90 per cent, have not had a trial. They are held under the euphemistic term "preventative detention," and because of a lack of judges, proper evidence, and even vehicles to transport them to court, it is unlikely many will be tried any time soon. "People sleep on top of people in here," one prisoner says through the bars of a bathroom-sized cell that holds 43 people. Most are standing. Others have fashioned hammocks out of scraps of cloth and have suspended themselves from the bars of the cell's high window, where they can get more light and air...

Here is more.  And that is not all:

There is a punishment cell, perhaps four feet tall, where no one can stand. The punishment cell is crowded, but less so than other cells, and some inmates prefer it. "You have people who do things wrong just so they have a place to lie down or to be safe from gangs," Cadet says.

Here is a video about recent food riots in Haiti, and no those are not in the prisons.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 8, 2008 at 06:54 AM in Law | Permalink

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