CRIME AND IMPRISONMENT Elsewhere, there were moves towards a more sustainable and long-term approach to reducing overcrowding. In Nigeria, a Presidential Advisory Committee was established in order to focus efforts on decongesting the country’s prisons, which have a 136 per cent occupancy rate.31 In 2018 the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights produced guidelines urging states to decriminalise petty offences in order to address prison overcrowding and in recognition of the fact that criminalising such offences ‘contributes to discrimination and marginalisation by criminalising poverty, homelessness and unemployment, and impact[s] the poorest and most marginalised persons in our communities’.32 RECOMMENDATION 01 mandated to conduct regular visits to all types of places where persons are deprived of their liberty.34 Civil society organisations often have a specific role as part of NPMs. According to the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), the benefit of this is to supplement the resources and expertise of existing institutions and to ‘help to legitimize both an NPM’s mandate and its credibility as an institution, not least because civil society organisations are often structurally independent from government’.35 have grown more confident’.37 Civil society actors that engage in politically sensitive or human-rights related activities are particularly targeted, and restrictions are in part driven by the heightened international focus on counter-terrorism. Prison overcrowding needs to be addressed as a key factor affecting the physical and mental health of prisoners and staff. States should put measures in place to strengthen crime prevention, decriminalise petty offences, review the proportionality of sentencing and increase the use of alternatives to imprisonment. Closing space for civil society Civil society organisations33 play a vital role within criminal justice and prison systems. They act as watchdogs and highlight human rights abuses and corruption; provide legal aid services to defendants and prisoners; monitor conditions and treatment inside prisons through formal and informal mechanisms; link prisoners with their families and communities; support prison staff; advocate for transparency and accountability; share information, knowledge and skills to build consensus on evidence-based law and policy; and offer services and programmes that are essential for prisoners’ rehabilitation and reintegration into society on release. Crucially they bridge the gap between communities and prisons and bring a sense of normality to prison settings that are often far from normal. Civil society organisations also play a role in the work of external prison monitoring bodies, such as national human rights institutions, Ombudspersons, health inspectorates or anti-corruption bodies. As of October 2018, 88 United Nations (UN) member states had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and 70 of these states have now designated National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) – torture prevention monitoring bodies 10 | Whether working within NPMs or providing reintegration support, civil society needs to be able to operate within an enabling environment. This means working in favourable economic, political, social, cultural and legal conditions that allow citizens to engage with civil society. In the past decade, there has been an alarming trend towards restricting the space that civil society can operate in. According to data from the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, between 2004 and 2010 more than 50 countries considered or enacted measures restricting civil society.36 The global alliance CIVICUS reported that in 2018 there were serious systemic problems with the space for civil society in 109 countries, and concluded that ‘the enemies of human rights and social justice Such restrictions have affected how civil society organisations can access funding and how they engage with governments. For instance, since 2012 Russia has obliged foreign-funded civil society organisations engaged in ‘political activities’ to register as ‘foreign agents’, while in Ethiopia, the government has prohibited organisations working on human rights issues from receiving more than 10 per cent of their funding from abroad (it should be noted that this law is currently being revised). In Egypt, a 2017 law governing civil society prohibits engagement ‘in any work of political nature’ and requires organisations to seek prior permission before cooperating with any foreign entity.38 Restrictions on the legal and regulatory environment in which organisations operate have also constrained their ability to fulfil their role properly. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association describes how having a complex legal environment Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019