Pan-African Conference on Prison and Penal Reform in Africa

Ouagadougou

18-20 September 2002

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Penal Reform International (PRI) is an international human rights organisation and is organising a pan-African conference on penal systems in Ouagadougou, on 19-20 September 2002. For three days, around 150 participants including representatives from prison administrations, the judiciary and from the non-governmental sector, supported by international experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UNICEF, and Amnesty International, will gather and discuss the possibility to find an “African” solution to the specific problem of the use of prison in Africa.

The use of prison is widespread all around the world, and government have recourse to incarceration as a main sanction for all sort of crimes. This phenomenon is even more striking in developing countries, where legal texts date from the colonial era and promote the use of imprisonment as the appropriate solution for dealing with crime. The sentence of incarceration is overused in the judicial system. In reality, there are little or no alternatives to imprisonment. Sentencing practice in many jurisdictions is excessively punitive and the imposition of a fine is often outside the means of the indigent offender. This means that prison becomes a sanction of first rather than of last resort. This can and does contribute to congestion which has inevitably negative impact on the life of offenders, considering the limited material and human resources available in those countries.

The Ouagadougou conference is part of a broader initiative, started in 1996 in Kampala, Uganda which produced the Kampala Declaration on Condition of Detention in Africa. The Kampala declaration set out a long-term programme for penal reform for the whole African continent, and became the reference point for many prison services and jurisdictions. A year later, the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations.

The obstacles still to be overcome and the successful results obtained since 1996 convinced PRI and other penal reform actors in Africa that the time to reconvene a second meeting had come. This conference will contribute to the ongoing penal reform movement and promote new initiatives on the ground. Researchers have gathered statistical and other data, which will inform the debates. Work will focus on the development of good practices and identification of positives examples, around the continent.

The Ouagadougou Conference will take place under the auspices of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with the support of the Ministry of Justice in Burkina Faso. Mr. Blaise Compaoré, President of Burkina Faso, will be chairing the opening ceremony.

For more information on the Conference, please contact:

Natacha Kazatchkine, Coordinator

PRI, 40 rue du Château d’Eau 75010 Paris, France

Tel. +33 (0)1 48 03 90 23 Fax. +33 (0)1 48 03 90 20

E-mail : [email protected]

For more information on PRI, please visit our website: www.penalreform.org

Best wishes

Yves Prigent
Chargé de communication / Communication Officer
Penal Reform International
40 rue du Château d'Eau
75010 Paris - France
Tel.: 33 1 48 03 90 02
Fax: 33 1 48 03 90 20
www.penalreform.org