prison

Here is a picture of the newly created civil prison for women in Cabaret.

As per the Institute for Criminal Policy Research and MINUSTAH December 2015 statistics, considering an estimated national population of 10.78 million at the end of 2015, Haiti's prison population rate per 100,000 of the national population is 102. Haiti has an official capacity of 2,431 inmates in its prison system of 17 prisons with an occupancy level of 454.4%. The prison population for the December 2015 shows a number of 11,046 detainees and of that percentage, the share of pre-trial detainees and female prisoners are 70.9% and 4.1% respectively. The new prison will replace an outdated Pétion-ville prison with 50 inmate capacity which currently houses 305 prisoners. Moreover, the new prison will protect the privacy of the women prisoners, which is a definite matter of concern. Over 25% of women are being held without legal cause, and many of them wait anywhere from three to seven years before even going to trial.

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Haitian prisons are among the worst world-wide. Inmates are afflicted with lack of nutrition, mental disorders, and heart-related conditions.

Health and Human Rights in Prisons Project is an advocacy group, seeking to change conditions in the prison system. They provide healthcare services and legal aid to assure prisoners' cases are being properly handled by the Haitian justice system.

They insure medical treatment is consistent with good-care standards, and prison officials are informed about any transgressions of inmates' human rights.

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Prisons in Haiti possess some of the worst living conditions. Inmates are packed closely into a single room, where they huddle together on a cement floor. With no room to stretch out, they are forced to sleep in shifts. Their diets consist of gruel and little else.

They suffer from poor nutrition, mental ailments, and the possibility of heart attacks. They live in filth, occasionally hosed down. Their human rights are ignored and they are left to perish.

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Here is a picture of the Florestal brothers who have been released from prison by Cour d'Appel of Port-au-Prince. They were considered as political prisoners

Enold Florestal and his brother Josue, who were arrested and imprisoned 17 months ago on the charge of murdering a student named Frantzy Duverseau at his Port-au-Prince home on October 18, 2010, have been released from prison on December 19, 2014, three days after an Appellate Court ruled. On August 27, 2013, Haitian investigative judge Lamarre Bélizaire (he is said to be close to Martelly's government) ordered the arrests of four people--two brothers, Enold and Josué Florestal, their attorney André Michel and a police agent named Jeanco Honorat. The two brothers were plaintiffs in a suit accusing First Lady Sophia Martelly, and his son, Olivier Martelly, of corruption. On October 18, 2010, following an altercation between Mr. Enold and his in-laws, Enold reportedly assaulted his wife Fabienne Duverseau. When her brother Frantzy intervened, Enold was injured. He went to call the police and came back to the spot with his brother Josué, their attorney, André Michel and a police agent named Honorat. When Frantzy resisted arrest, Honorat shot him dead. In a September 2 report, Haitian independent National Human Rights Defense Network concluded the failure to identify which of the accused was a material author and which one acted as accomplice and issuing arrest warrant in such a state "constitutes a vast joke."

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Fort Dimanche began as a prison when the French occupied the island before Haitian independence in 1804. Once the U.S. began occupying the island from 1915 to 1934, its military turned Fort Dimanche into a military compound.

During the 1950s Duvalier dictatorship, he used death squads and the prison became a detention center, where dissidents were jailed, tormented, and killed. Any political opponents caught trying to leave the country ended up at Fort Dimanche.

Fort Dimanche today has been designated a monument.

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A group of Baptist missionaries have been left to languish in a Haitian prison. They landed in Haiti soon after the quake hit.

Trying to be good Samaritans, they attempted to rescue 33 Haitian youngsters, who had been put into orphanages in the Dominican Republic. Haitian authorities caught them at the border and imprisoned them for abduction.

The U.S. government has not paid much attention to advocates for the missionaries. The missionaries are being left in the dark about U.S. motives.

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