About us –

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.

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CİSST

in 2021

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

General Statistics

According to the latest* figures, there are 371.587 prisoner in 273 prisons, of which  100 are open prisons, 4 are juvenile reformatories,12 are women’s closed prisons, 8 are women’s open prisons, and  are closed juvenile prisons. The total capacity of the prisons is  299.042.

81.231 prisoners stay in open prisons and  290.356 prisoners stay in closed prisons. 315.697 prisoners are incarcerated, while 55.890 are pretrial detainees.

There are 200 LGBTI+around 11.345 foreign prisoners, There are 269 prisoners with disabilities in prisons: 19 with speech and language disabilities,  42 with visual disabilities, 28 with hearing disabilities, 18 with hearing and speech disabilities and 162 with orthopedic disabilities while 1.453 prisoner aggravated lifers. 5.422 of the prisoners are over 65 years old.

The number of prisoners who can continue their education is 39,519 and there are 65.969 prisoners who have been insured professionally.

 3.690 children between the age of 12 -18 are kept in prisons, of which 165 are girls. The number of children between 0-6 ages staying with their mother is 759 among 16.039 female prisoners.

In addition, the subsistence allowance for prisoners who do not have health problems was announced as 83 TL, and for women staying with their children aged 0-6 from 150 TL.

The number of prisoners who lost their lives in prisons of Turkey was 107 in 201995 in 2020 and 128 in 2021 and 101 in 2022 and 108 in 2023

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.

Recent reports and books

JUVENILE PRISONERS
June 2022

Conditions of imprisonment and execution procedures

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CISST ANNUAL REPORT ON PRISONS

2021

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Türkiye’de Öğrenci Mahpus Olmak yayında

December 2021

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Our Blogs

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.

Health
Foreigner
Student
LGBTİ
Aggravated Life Sentence
Worker
Woman
Child
Disabled

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