The Civil Society in the Penal System Association (Ceza İnfaz Sisteminde Sivil Toplum Derneği, CISST) was founded in 2006 in Istanbul. CISST works to protect the rights and liberties of prisoners and to provide that the rights, conditions, and practices in prisons in Turkey comply with human dignity and universal standards of human rights.
CISST is against perceptions and discourses that stigmatize prisoners or view them as a monolithic group, it thus centralizes the development of a rights-based understanding and language in all its works. In line with this stance, CISST adopts an inclusive and holistic human rights approach, bringing into focus the situations of various groups of prisoners with diverse needs, namely the LGBTI+, disabled, elderly, foreign, women, child, or sick people in prisons, those sentenced to aggravated imprisonment for life, and worker and student prisoners.
Contacted With
1412 Prisoners
from 248 prisons
Via Helpline
400 Prisoners
683 Counseling Services
228 Applications
30 Publications
3 Reports 2 Books 12 Articles
13 COVID-19 Reports
370 News About Us in the Media
2796 Human rights Applications
to 17 Different Institutions
13 Press Releases
9 Thematic Areas
8 Workshops
11 Volunteer Lawyers
According to the latest* figures, there are 349.893 convicts in 399 prisons, of which 89 are open prisons, 4 are juvenile reformatories, 10 are women’s closed prisons, 7 are women’s open prisons, and 9 are closed juvenile prisons. The total capacity of the prisons is 289.974, resulting in 20,66% over the capacity of the prisons.
123.800 prisoners stay in open prisons and 226.093 prisoners stay in closed prisons. 308.279 prisoners are convicted, while 41.614 are pretrial detainees.
There are 200 LGBTI+, around 15,000 foreign prisoners, 581 disabled prisoners and 1.453 aggravated lifers. 5,371 of the prisoners are over 65 years old.
The number of prisoners who can continue their education is 39,519 and there are 60,767 prisoners who have been insured professionally.
2.560children under the age of 18 are kept in prisons, of which 104 are girls. The number of children staying with their mother is 383 among 14.377 female prisoners.
In addition, the subsistence allowance for prisoners who do not have health problems was announced as 50 TL, , and for women staying with their children aged 0-6 from 75 TL.
The number of prisoners who lost their lives in prisons of Turkey was 107 in 2019, 95 in 2020 and 128 in 2021.
İThese figures have been taken from different sources at different dates due to a lack of publicly available data. As a result, there are some discrepancies between the figures.
2019
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Experts who maintain communication with prisoners,
disseminates the news published on the subject and the news they create based on their own knowledge or observations through blogs.
In this way, a resource is created where the public can follow up-to-date information about prisons, developments and problems experienced by prisoners.
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Bugün dünyada ve ülkemizde salgın hastalıklar, yüksek enflasyon oranları ile derinleşerek artan ekonomik kriz mahpusların hayatı için daha da büyük bir tehdit oluşturmaktadır. Mahpusların yaşam standartları, fiziksel ve ruhsal sağlıkları; k…