The Fifth White Book provides a final evaluation on the consequences on prisons’ overcrowding of the harsh legislation approved in 2006 under the Berlusconi’s government.
This analysis suggests that the new legislation in Liberia is a step in the wrong direction. Instead of adopting a right-based approach wherein drug use would be seen primarily as a public health issue and where law-enforcement initiatives would focus on high-level traffickers rather than small-scale dealers, the new laws broadly criminalize every aspect of drug-related activity.
The report denounces the USA’s failure to address the growing body of counterproductive and regressive state laws, policies, and practices that substantially undermine women’s dignity and status as persons under the law.
While every situation is different and Costa Rica presents several advantages that other countries may lack, its recent efforts provide an encouraging example of how reform is possible in this politically sensitive issue.
This short briefing recommends a number of overarching principles which should both sit within the new post-2015 goals and cut across the entire development framework.
Although a significant sector of the government has worked to solidify these advances, another sector within the state has gone in the opposite direction, trying to maintain the punitive status quo.
