17-08-2004
Penal Reform International (PRI) is anongovernmental organization created in 1989 in Grönigue, the Netherlands, with a London-based headquarters. PRI also has offices in Paris, Washington, Moscow and Bucharest, as well as Costa Rica, Nepal, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. Over the past 10 years, PRI has developed programs in more than 50 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
PRI works to bring criminal justice systems more into line with international standards, promote alternatives to custody and improve access to justice. PRI's primary objective is to work towards penal reform, within culturally diverse contexts.
PRI respects the right to life, as it is acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. PRI is opposed to any kind of executions, judicial or extra judicial, whatever the circumstances, without taking into account the guilt or innocence of the person. Penal Reform International’s programs on the death penalty work to achieve the following aims:
- To provide free legal representation in the Commonwealth Caribbean to prisoners sentenced to death and to train lawyers in appeal proceedings;
-To promote and support criminal justice system reform as an alternate strategy for capital punishment;
- To lead projects that assure the implementation and the existing guarantees for the protection of the rights of people liable to the death penalty, as stated in documents of the United Nations ;
- To promote the universal abolition of the death penalty;
- To raise the awareness ofprison staff of the conditions of prisoners condemned to death and to train staff, particularly by publishing training tools.
As a Steering Committee member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, PRI is committed to the preparation of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, on October 10th every year. PRI is also a member of Death Penalty Panel of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK.
www.penalreform.org 
