Tag: prisons

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News

Support for prison vaccination grows

The vaccination of some prisoners in the UK has begun this week, although the proposed vaccination process has raised concerns.  Vaccinations in prisons currently mirror vaccinations in the UK as a whole, with prisoners who are in high-risk groups, such as the over 80s and the clinically vulnerable, being offered the vaccine first.  However, there […]

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Features

The unexpected drone footage: an insight into China’s prisons

--FILE--Young Chinese inmates attend a book donation ceremony at an underage labor camp in Fuzhou city, southeast Chinas Fujian province, 16 June 2009. Meng Jianzhu, who became secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee in November, said at a national law and order work conference that the re-education through labour, or laojiao, system would be halted after the move was rubber-stamped by the National Peoples Congress in March. The remarks were first reported by the bureau chief of the Legal Daily, the Justice Ministrys official mouthpiece, and were picked up by state media outlets. An official who attended the event confirmed Mengs comments. But state media sent mixed signals about the policy. A Xinhua report on the conference said only that authorities had pledged to reform the system, and some analysts noted that Meng spoke of halting rather than abolishing the laojiao system.

Recently released drone footage offers a rare glimpse into China’s hidden prisons. The video, which was anonymously posted to a YouTube channel in September, appears to show Chinese police transferring hundreds of blindfolded and shackled prisoners in what is believed to be the province of Xinjiang.  The inmates are thought to be Uighur Muslims who […]

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Science

The ugly duckling of health and social reform

Image: Christian Bardenhorst Over 60s have always made up a significant minority of the prison population, but are now the ‘fastest growing’ demographic in custody, said Nigel Newcomen, Prisons and Probation ombudsman, in his annual report. The implications of this, for the way health (and social care) is delivered in the prison service, are often slightly […]