A well-known judge recently advised listeners of a Haitian radio station, “Don’t get arrested, because you don’t know if they’ll let you out of prison.”
Haiti’s judicial system has not worked well for a long time. But in recent years, delays in the appointment of judges, an increase in violence and protests from judges and judicial staff demanding pay increases and better working conditions have overwhelmed a system where 80% of inmates are held without trial and increasingly illegal and arbitrary preventive detentions, activists said. “These circumstances are unacceptable, they violate the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the United Nations Integrated Office for Haiti said in a statement this week.
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An estimated 11,000 prisoners are held in prisons across the country, including the National Penitentiary in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which has a capacity of 800 inmates but houses about 3,800.
“The system is on its knees,” said Marie-Yolène Gilles, executive director of the human rights organization Fondasyion Je Klere. “He’s been paralyzed for a year.”