Canada: Too many prisoners languish in segregation, report says

About 700 of about 12,500 federal inmates -- those serving sentences of at least two years -- are locked up 23 hours per day in segregation, or "the digger."

Other contentious issues include a decision in June to ban prisoners from buying computers and a 2001 policy that forces people serving life sentences for murder to spend their first two years in a maximum-security institution.

[via "The Ottawa Citizen"]

 

Swaziland: Red Cross investigates prison conditions

"We want an end to beatings with metal chains when we are naked. The chains get bloody, and this spreads Aids when the next prisoner is beaten," Boyce Gama, an inmates' spokesperson at Matsapha Maximum Security Prison for Men, told a Swaziland Red Cross fact-finding meeting at the weekend.

[via "The Mail & Guardian Online"]

Relative Life Expectancy at Birth

#11, Canada: 79.83 years
#217, Swaziland: 39.47 years
#1/225, Andorra, 83.5 years
#225/225, Mozambique, 31.3 years