Humane Approach to Incarceration Alleviates Chronic Prison Overcrowding — Global Issues

In Manila City Jail in the capital of the Philippines, prisoners lie in neat rows demonstrating how they sleep every night.

In male dormitory number 4, there is no mattress or even a bed for most of them. It is not even possible to lie on your back due to the lack of space.

Instead, prisoners, dressed in their yellow prison T-shirts, curl up on their sides, often using their neighbor as a pillow, as they try to get a good night’s sleep in the damp, cramped conditions.

Carlo* has been in prison for six years and is awaiting trial. He said UN News on a visit to the prison that “men sleep in rows of maybe 200 all the way to the end of the dormitory, and it’s hard to move around” and added that while “it’s not comfortable, as the years go by I’ve gotten used to sleeping on my side. People on the outside may find it depressing, but comfort is a relative term.”

A recent unprecedented heat wave in Manila has pushed temperatures in this shared dormitory to over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) at night, making conditions even more inhumane for prisoners. Carlo suffers from “constant insomnia.”

Originally built in 1847, during the Spanish colonial period, in the densely populated Santa Cruz district, Manila City Jail is one of the oldest prisons in the Philippines.

The official capacity currently stands at just under 1,200 prisoners, although there are currently some 3,200 men in the prison, an overcrowding rate that equates to 168 percent over capacity.

The prison director, Warden Lino Montano Soriano, has been tasked with reducing the prison population to the extent that his responsibilities allow. Since taking charge of the prison, he has instructed his deputy to “check all the prisoners’ files, because I assumed that many of them had already had their expected release dates.”

Progress in reducing overcrowding is slow but moving in the right direction. In March 2024, 288 prisoners were admitted to the prison, while 354 were released.

Bureaucracy is far from the main reason for overcrowding in detention centers in the Philippines. A controversial justice policy targeting drug dealers and people who use drugs has contributed significantly to the increase in the Philippines’ prison population from around 95,000 to more than 165,000 between 2015 and 2021.

The Philippines now has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the world, with the overall occupancy rate of pretrial prisons reportedly at 322 percent (down from 365 percent in 2023), ranking it close to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti and Uganda in terms of overcrowding.

Many prisoners are held in pre-trial detention for long periods before appearing in court, and are sometimes released without trial.

Authorities in the Philippines recognize that change is needed.

Justice Maria Filomena Singh is a member of the Supreme Court of the Philippines and is committed to improving conditions in correctional facilities. One of the main goals of this is to reduce congestion.

She also regularly visited women’s prisons: ““These are mothers, these are daughters, these are wives and I feel connected to them,” she told UN News, adding that “we cannot call ourselves a just and humane society if we have people like these living among us.”

There are a number of ways in which authorities in the Philippines are reducing the number of prisoners.

Priority is given to the release of prisoners aged 70 and over. Others can have their sentences shortened through good behaviour, but also through an innovative programme called Read Your Way Out, which links reading activities to an earlier release.

Much effort is being made to prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. This is being done by limiting the number of people in pre-trial detention and only locking people up for the most serious offences.

“Of all the people in our prisons, about 70 percent have not yet completed their trials. So they are there on remand even if their offences are not serious,” said Justice Singh.

“These people have not yet been found guilty, and yet we treat them no differently than those who have already been convicted.”

Reducing payments to secure bail while they await trial is another priority. Additional changes are being made to criminal justice procedures to keep people out of prison where they are “literally unproductive,” a situation in which families who depend on the incarcerated person are “deprived of their support,” Justice Singh said.

Prisoners can also attend court hearings online from certain prisons. This also helps to speed up the usually slow justice process.

War on drugs

About 70 percent of all prisoners in the Philippines are incarcerated for sometimes minor drug offenses, a result of the previous government’s very strict war on drugs.

While the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) supported measures to reduce bail, give older prisoners priority on release and implement the Read Your Way Out programme. It also prioritised support for the government to change the overall approach to drug-related crime.

“Drugs are not just a law enforcement issue, they are also a health problem that must be viewed through the lens of prevention and rehabilitation,” said Daniele Marchesi. UNODCthe head of the country in the Philippines.

“It is a complex problem,” added Mr Marchesi, “that links the judiciary, the police and other law enforcement agencies in areas including health, drug policy and human rights.”

The complexity requires what Supreme Court Justice Filomena Singh calls a “whole-sector approach.”

According to Judge Singh, the new approach appears to be paying off, with some 8,000 prisoners released in the past year.

Hopeful for release

Carlo, who is in the Manila City Jail, is one such person who hopes to soon be among the growing number of released prisoners. He says, “I love my life outside; I miss going on dates and I miss the movies.”