The non-governmental organization condemned overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, infectious diseases, and prolonged arbitrary detentions.

It is illegal to turn police stations into penitentiary centers, therefore urgent actions must be taken to guarantee the dignity and fundamental rights of citizens deprived of liberty, subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment, the Haiti Libre newspaper reported.

The horrendous conditions in which prisoners live in Haiti led to the deaths of 78 inmates in the second half of 2024. Furthermore, the occupancy rate of the main prisons in 2022 was 401 percent.

A report by the UN Integrated Office in Haiti stated that most of them died due to lack of medical care, unsanitary conditions, insufficient nutrition, and lack of access to clean water.

In addition to the severe food shortage in the prisons, detainees’ access to medical care is almost nonexistent, with only one doctor for every 1,016 inmates, and supplies of medicine are scarce and limited.

It criticized the fact that some inmates had been imprisoned for more than three years without trial for minor offenses, while others had been awaiting sentencing for a decade.

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