International News
New Report: The Death Penalty in 2004 Year End Report
31st January 2005
Historic five year decline in the death penalty in the United States continues in 2004, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"1,000 to sue over slopping out" by Hamish MacDonell, The Scotsman
19th January 2005
More than 1,000 prisoners are lining up to take the Scottish Executive to court following last year's ruling that found that the practice of slopping out in Scottish prisons was "degrading", it emerged last night.
"Police station prisoners to be handed free needles" by Gareth Edwards, Edinburgh Evening News
14th January 2005
Prisoners are to be given free needles by police after it emerged that two-thirds of drug addicts taken into custody in the city are infected with hepatitis C or HIV.
Press Release from the Lothian and Borders Police: "Needle Exchange Scheme: New initiative to reduce health risks to police staff and reduce harm to drug users"
14th January 2005
Lothian and Borders Police in Scotland are piloting a needle exchange scheme for prisoners in a bid to reduce health risks to police staff and reduce harm to drug users.
"Majority of prisoners take drugs in jail" by Rhiannon Edward, The Scotsman
30th December 2004
More than half of Scotland's prisoners have taken drugs while they were in jail, a survey said yesterday. Three-quarters also claimed mandatory drug testing had made no difference to their use.
"Drug-taking on high behind bars" - BBC News
29th December 2004
Despite mandatory testing being introduced in 1994 across Scottish jails some 76% claimed it had not affected their drug intake.
"Why Some Politicians Need Their Prisons to Stay Full" by Brent Staples, New York Times
27th December 2004
The mandatory sentencing fad that swept the United States beginning in the 1970's has had dramatic consequences - most of them bad.
"Judges' verdict on terror laws provokes constitutional crisis" by Clare Dyer, Michael White and Alan Travis, The Guardian
17th December 2004
Lord Scott described the regime under which suspects can be detained indefinitely on the say-so of the home secretary with no right to know the grounds for detention as "the stuff of nightmares, associated with France before and during the revolution, with Soviet Russia in the Stalinist era, and now associated, as a result of section 23 of the 2001 Act, with the United Kingdom".
"Law lords back terror detainees" by Mark Oliver and Sarah Left, The Guardian
16th December 2004
Detaining foreigners without trial under emergency anti-terror powers breaks European human rights legislation, law lords ruled today.
Harm reduction in prisons: a 'rights based analysis' by Thomas Kerr, et al, Critical Public Health, Vol. 14, No. 4, 1-16, 2004
15th December 2004
Available evidence indicates that most harm-reduction programmes can be implemented within prisons without compromising security or increasing illicit drug use.
