October 22, 2014 Mongolia

Respecting human rights in Mongolian prisons

Caritas CR has made and published a report titled, “The state of human rights in Mongolian jails.“ . It details the results of complete and unique research so far focused on the situation in Mongolian jails from the view of respecting human rights of people in jail and prison.

The target of the research was to describe actual state of Mongolian jails and compare them with existing international standards. Data collection took place during first half of 2013.

The research team received information through the completed forms from 488 prisoners and persons in jails, along with 23 directors of jails, 129 security workers, 43 social workers and psychologists and 17 doctors and other health care workers. Formulation of research questions was based on standard basic rules of care of prisoners launched by the congress of OSN [spell out] in 1955. Questions were focused on these 4 subjects:

1. Current observance of human rights in jails
2. Degree to which the OSN standard for human rights of prisoners are currently met
3. Respect for Mongolian law standards
4. Compliance of relevant Mongolian legislation with OSN standards.

The research team consisting of the project coordinator of Caritas CR, research assistant and project assistant, reached following findings:

• In all of Mongolia, there are 40 institutions for people in prison and / or persons in custody; 21 of them are buildings which were originally designed for other purposes (hospitals, warehouses, barracks, trade or industrial premises). 22.5% of them have been in use as prisons or jails for more than 50 years. The number of buildings originally built as prisons has increased from 2002.
• Prisoners are not grouped according to the type and seriousness of the offense.  Prisoners convicted of violent and nonviolent crimes are placed together. If there is any separation, it is due to the personal options of prison security, not because of the rules of law. This situation can have a negative influence on the rate of successfully returning prisoners back into society, according to research.
• Water for prisoners in some institutions does not meet standards. Daily ration of water depends on available sources. Sometimes less than half of the daily standard requirement for water is all that is available.
• Only some prisons are able to offer their prisoners possibility of paid work.
• The qualification of prison workers varies in every case. Some training is available on some occasions and in some locations.

Study in full text is available for downloading (pdf)