TRENDS IN THE USE OF IMPRISONMENT Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment face ongoing and severe human rights violations and their treatment is often worse than the treatment received by other prisoners. They can experience poor living conditions, restricted human contact and little or no access to meaningful activities or rehabilitation programmes. They also face ongoing challenges accepting the length of their sentence. According to a recent study in Ireland, political factors and fears of an adverse public reaction played a key role in determining whether to release long-serving prisoners.137 The ‘right to hope’ has been recognised by the European Court of Human Rights as a ‘fundamental aspect of...humanity’.138 The Court has ruled that a life sentence in which the prisoner has no hope of release is inhuman and degrading and thus infringes Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. It has also emphasised the importance of the rehabilitative purpose of imprisonment. In March 2018, the Constitutional Court in Malta added to the body of ‘right to hope’ jurisprudence when it ruled that a person sentenced to life in jail could be considered for parole after serving a minimum of 25 years.139 The Court stated that ‘the person who is found guilty of the worst crimes must not lose its dignity and must retain its right to hope that, after having paid for its actions, be considered as having learned from the shortcoming and change the path it had taken’.140 Following the Supreme Court of Kenya’s 2017 ruling that the mandatory death penalty was unconstitutional, the government established a taskforce which recommended that various offences that had previously carried a death sentence should instead be punishable by a penalty of life imprisonment, including treason, murder and aggravated robbery.141 In the US, the Senate passed the First Step Act in 2018,142 which brings to an end automatic life sentences for certain federal offences under the ‘three strikes’ penalty. In 2018, the Caribbean Court of Justice upheld the Belize Court of Appeal’s decision that mandatory life sentences for murder are unconstitutional. This means that judges have the discretion to impose a fixed-term sentence for individuals convicted of murder, rather than mandatory life imprisonment or the death penalty.143 As a result of this decision, at least 44 life-sentenced prisoners will be re-sentenced. RECOMMENDATION 07 The number of offences that attract life sentences or de facto life sentences should be reduced, in line with the principle of proportionality. States should take measures to abolish life sentences without parole, which can never meet fundamental human rights standards. All forms of life imprisonment should be prohibited as a penalty for offences committed under the age of 18. Drugs and imprisonment In its World Drug Report for 2018, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)144 states that the range of drugs available and the size of the drugs market continue to expand and diversify robustly. While this is due to the persistence of traditional drugs, new psychoactive substances are also emerging and the non-medical use of prescription drugs has reached epidemic proportions in some parts of the world. Implementation of the decade-long UN Political Declaration and Plan of Action on drug control comes to an end in 2019. The Declaration aimed to enhance international cooperation and eradicate – or significantly reduce – the supply and demand for illicit drugs. An overall assessment shows that governments have not only failed to achieve the targets and commitments made in 2009, but in many cases have introduced counterproductive policies that have directly or indirectly resulted in human rights violations.145 18 | The global drug strategy for the next decade needs to be reshaped. Civil society organisations have called for a focus on improving health outcomes, compliance with human rights norms, and promotion of peace, security and development, in line with both the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the outcome document of the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs.146 In September 2018, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) contributed to the debate with a call for more proportionate sentencing; a repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offences; appropriate drug policies for women, children, youth and vulnerable groups; the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes, including for drug offences; and a call to end human rights abuses in the name of drug control.147 OHCHR also expressed concern at the increase in the militarisation of civilian law enforcement agents and the engagement of the military in ‘war on drugs’ efforts.148 In March 2019, the UN agreed a new framework for global drug control. Although some progress was made in acknowledging the failures of the past 10 years of global drug control, the newly agreed Ministerial Declaration was criticised for re-committing the international community to another decade of focusing on the elimination of the drug market.149 The impact of drug policy on the use of imprisonment is significant, and a report published in October 2018 by the International Drug Policy Consortium notes that ‘the sheer number of people incarcerated for drug offences, as well as the proportion of people held in pre-trial detention for drug crimes have contributed to severe prison overcrowding and dire conditions in many parts of the world’.150 (See Pre-trial detention, page 12 and Prison overcrowding, page 8). At the regional level, the European Council adopted its conclusions on the alternatives to coercive sanctions in March 2018, which recommend that EU member states make non-custodial measures Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019