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The Global Commission on Drug Policy’s report, Beyond Punishment: From Criminal Justice Responses to Drug Policy Reform, exposes how punitive drug policies have driven mass incarceration and grave human rights violations. In 2023 alone, over 3.1 million people were arrested for drug-related offenses, with 20% of the global prison population detained for such crimes – nearly half for simple possession.

The report underscores the devastating consequences of prohibitionist policies, including over one million overdose deaths in the U.S. in the past two decades and 40,000 in Canada in just eight years. It also highlights systemic inequities, such as Indigenous peoples in Canada being six times more likely to face drug-related arrests than white counterparts. Furthermore, the report illustrates the disproportionate burdens on women and children, deepening cycles of poverty and marginalization.

It examines the broad spectrum of criminal justice responses to drug offenses, ranging from stop-and-search practices that disproportionately target marginalized communities to extreme measures like the death penalty and enforced treatment. These approaches often violate human rights, perpetuate stigma, and fail to address the root causes of substance use.

Offering a roadmap for reform, the report advocates for evidence-based strategies, including harm reduction measures (e.g., Overdose Prevention Centers, naloxone distribution, and safer supply programs), decriminalization and the legal regulation of drug markets. These approaches not only save lives but also reduce societal harms, foster dignity, and promote health and equity.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offenses
• Available languages De l’échec de la pénalisation à la réforme des politiques en matière de drogues

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) has released a detailed report exposing the inhumane conditions at Qarchak Prison in Iran, a facility originally designed as a poultry farm. The prison detains over 2,000 women and children in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, with a lack of healthcare, contaminated drinking water, and inadequate nutrition. Children, some born in the prison, are exposed to severe hardships, including unhygienic environments, insufficient food, and inadequate medical care, and are often separated from their mothers at the age of two.

The report also highlights the use of solitary confinement for women, including death row prisoners awaiting execution. These cells lack ventilation and basic facilities, exacerbating the psychological and physical suffering of detainees. Mothers detained with their children face additional challenges, including threats of separation and the absence of educational or recreational resources for their children.

IHRNGO calls for the immediate closure of Qarchak Prison and urges the international community to take action against these egregious human rights violations. This report underscores the urgent need to protect the dignity and rights of all prisoners, particularly the most vulnerable women and children.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Death Row Conditions / Women

Executions take a severe psychological toll on prison staff, with many experiencing PTSD, moral injury, and emotional distress. This article explores the hidden casualties of the death penalty, revealing how executioners and correctional officers face mental health challenges that often go unacknowledged. With insights from studies, personal accounts, and cases across the U.S., it highlights the urgent need for systemic support and reform.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions / Mental Illness

Literature on opposition to the death penalty typically characterizes abolition as inexorable and attributes its fulfillment to the age of human rights. Although most countries abolished capital punishment after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this article uses three comparative case studies to demonstrate abolition’s entanglement with a broader range of political, legal, and cultural factors. Applying a historically grounded nonteleological approach, we offer three insights. First, civilizationist values drove abolitionism in countries in the “vanguard,” such as Canada and England/Wales, where human rights rationales were expressed well after abolition and as a mark of superiority. Second, death penalty abolition has often allied with decolonization and penal reform, but assertions of independence and sovereignty have periodically provoked reinstatement, as in Mexican and Philippine history, which underscores the fragility of abolition. Third, state-centric approaches to de jure and de facto abolition overlook the practice of extrajudicial and summary “rebel” executions in polities such as Myanmar and Mali, which lack a state monopoly on force. Further historical studies that do not presuppose a human rights explanation of abolition and that compare jurisdictions within as well as between the Global North and South will better grasp the death penalty’s complex history.

• Document type Academic Article
• Countries list Canada / Mali / Mexico / Myanmar / Philippines / United Kingdom
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment / Trend Towards Abolition