Prison overcrowding has become a problem throughout the world, creating breeding grounds for diseases such as HIV and compounding security threats by offering inmates a chance to form close criminal ties, the U.N. crime chief said Thursday.
The situation is particularly bad in poor countries, said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
"We do face a humanitarian disaster," Costa said, noting "dramatic situations" at detention facilities in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. In Haiti, he said, he visited a prison built for 420 inmates but housing 4,000, with some in such small spaces they were forced to stand up.
"I've never seen anything like this," Costa told reporters. "I believe that possibly during slavery ... the individuals were treated better than I have seen."
There are 30 million people under detention worldwide at any time, he said.
Costa suggested governments could free jail space by offering alternatives to prison for lighter crimes and misdemeanors, and for situations in which an individual is not a threat to society. He suggested drug addicts also could be hospitalized instead of jailed.
Overcrowded prisons are "good universities for criminals," and can actually worsen the security situation in a society over time, he warned.
Putting inmates in close quarters or unsanitary conditions also threatens society's ability to fight diseases such as HIV because prisoners, once released, can infect others, he said.
Earlier Thursday, Costa urged a meeting of the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice to come together to address organized and transnational crime.
"We face a crime wave that has become a security crisis," Costa said, according to a copy of his remarks. "It must be stopped before it spreads even more fear, corruption, violence and poverty."
Representatives from the commission's 40 members nations are meeting for a week through April 24, will discuss issues including penal reform and reducing prison populations.
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