Prisoner abuse
Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated. Prisoner abuse can include physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, torture, or other acts such as refusal of essential medication, and it can be perpetuated by either fellow inmates or prison faculty.Forms of abuse
Abuse of prisoners can include physical abuse, as well as psychological forms of harm including verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, white noise, pointless/absurd or humiliating instructions, recurrent exhaustive inspections and shakedowns, arbitrary strip searches, and denuding actions.Enablement of sexual violence
Prisoners are sometimes intentionally housed with inmates known to have raped other prisoners, or protection from known rapists may be purposely withheld from the prisoners. These practices create a very high incidence of rape in US prisons, which was the topic of the 2001 report No Escape from Human Rights Watch.The experience of forced strip searches can be experienced as a traumatic event similarly to that of rape, especially when combined with habitual body cavity searches. The prevalence of CCTV in modern correctional facilities and the generally indiscreet nature of strip searches, often with a number of prison guards observing, usually adds to the experienced humiliation. Strip searches are often arbitrarily used under various pretences, when the actual ambition is to assert control and predominance as well as to intimidate the subjected prison inmates.Torture
Torture of prisoners includes any act, whether physical or psychological, which is deliberately done to inflict sensations of pain upon a person under the actor's custody or physical control. This form of prisoner abuse is usually exerted to extract information, but also as means of intimidation, attrition or punishment.Enhanced interrogation
"Enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for U.S. torture methods implemented in the war on terror purportedly needed to extract information from detainees. Examples include use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, starvation, thirst, and sexual humiliation.Abu Ghraib
Right to health
According to international laws, a State is liable to ensure prisoners' right to receive health care. Prison authorities are fully responsible to provide proper medical treatment to the detainees and ensure their well-being.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the overcrowded Jaw prison of Bahrain witnessed a major COVID-19 outbreak. Several prisoners were confirmed to be infected with the virus, while the authorities failed to facilitate them with proper preventive medical supplies, including face masks or hand sanitizers, and conducting regular screening tests. The authorities fell short of ensuring prisoners' rights to health and following the rules of treating prisoners. One of the main concerns had been the extensive population of the prison, which made social distancing impossible. On 9 June 2021, an inmate of Jaw prison, Husain Barakat, died due to COVID-19 complications. Even after the pandemic, Bahrain's Jaw prison remained controversial, where prisoners' rights of health continued to be violated. In June 2022, Amnesty International reported that Bahraini authorities failed to respond to the inmates suffering with tuberculosis. Prison authorities constantly disregarded the prisoners with symptoms and did not allow them to get tested for the airborne disease. Some of the prisoners were called back to the prison after they were confirmed of being infected in the hospital. One of the prisoners, Ahmed Jaber, was not sent to the hospital until he was semi-paralysed after being sick for 11 months.