TRENDS IN THE USE OF IMPRISONMENT A report in early 2018 by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide examined the risk factors and systemic flaws that led to wrongful convictions and use of the death penalty in six countries.122 Common factors included ineffective assistance of legal counsel; torture and coercion leading to false confessions; mistaken eyewitness identification; misconduct by officials; lengthy pre-trial detention; fair trial violations; obstacles to appeal and post-conviction review; racial and ethnic discrimination; and false or misleading forensic evidence. Short of abolition, the report concludes that basic procedural safeguards are required to minimise the risk of wrongful convictions and death sentences. RECOMMENDATION 06 Countries that still retain the death penalty should move progressively towards its abolition. Countries that implement the death penalty should uphold the highest fair trial standards and make efforts to improve the conditions of prisoners on death row. Women and the death penalty Available data indicates that there are approximately 500 women on death row globally. Most of these women have been sentenced to death for the crime of murder, often of a close family member following a history of gender-based violence.123 Drug-related offences are the next largest category of crimes that women are sentenced to death for, particularly in the Middle East and Asia.124 There are striking similarities around the world among women sentenced to death for murder, and most cases involve long-term abuse by a family member and the absence of effective outside help.125 Economic dependence, fear of losing custody of a child, widespread societal tolerance of violence against women, and the difficulty and stigma involved in obtaining a divorce exacerbate the effects of family abuse. Several women sentenced to death, particularly in Iran and Nigeria, had been forcibly married at a young age.126 When prosecuting women, courts routinely fail to consider their history as survivors of gender-based violence and it is exceedingly rare for family violence to be treated as a mitigating factor during sentencing proceedings for death penalty cases. In some countries, the death penalty is mandatory for certain offences, in which case there is no possibility for a woman’s prior history of abuse to be considered. Even in countries with discretionary capital sentencing, courts often ignore or discount the significance of gender-based violence. This was highlighted by the case of Noura Hussein, a 19-year-old Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death in May 2018 for killing the man she was forced to marry at the age of 16, as he and his accomplices tried to rape her for the second time. An appeals court eventually overturned her death sentence and replaced it with a five-year sentence.127 Her case received international attention, but many other similar cases do not. Detention conditions in most of the states that retain the death penalty fall far short of minimum standards, although there is little research about the living conditions of women specifically. In general, the situation for women on death row is an under-researched area which merits more attention.128 Life imprisonment The global trend towards the abolition and restriction of the death penalty has resulted in many states adopting life imprisonment as their most serious sanction. (See Death penalty, page 15). In 2014, there were an estimated half a million people serving life sentences globally.129 Recent ground-breaking research revealed that between 2000 and 2014, there was an increase of almost 84 per cent in the number of people serving formal life sentences worldwide, and formal sentences of life imprisonment exist in 183 out of 216 countries.130 The same study also highlighted the increased prevalence and growth in de facto life sentences, such as long, fixed terms of imprisonment for as much as 99 years. There are at least 64 countries that have provisions for de facto life sentences, including 15 that do not impose formal life sentences at all.131 For instance, in the federal system in Mexico, prisoners can face maximum fixed-term sentences of up to 140 years. 16 | Life without parole sentences (LWOP) mean that the prisoner has no possibility of having their sentence reviewed, so will be imprisoned until his or her death. There has been a significant increase in the numbers of prisoners serving LWOP in the US, which accounts for half of all prisoners serving whole life sentences around the world.132 Other countries, such as India and China, have recently adopted LWOP as a formal statutory sanction. The only country to still allow LWOP for crimes committed under the age of 18 years is the US. In October 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that these sentences violate the state constitution and found that ‘children are less criminally culpable than adults, and the characteristics of youth do not support the penological goals of a life without parole sentence’. In total, 26 US states and the District of Columbia now prohibit or do not use life without parole for children.133 There are still 67 countries that retain life imprisonment as a penalty for offences committed under the age of 18. A further 49 countries permit sentences of 15 years or longer, and 90 countries permit sentences of 10 years or longer.134 There is a growing movement for the prohibition of all forms of life imprisonment for children and the UN Human Rights Council has called on member states repeatedly to prohibit it in law and practice.135 The UN Special Rapporteur on torture has also stated that ‘life imprisonment and lengthy sentences, such as consecutive sentencing, are grossly disproportionate and therefore cruel, inhuman or degrading when imposed on a child. Life sentences or sentences of an extreme length have a disproportionate impact on children and cause physical and psychological harm that amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.’136 Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019