In 2004, a teenage girl incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center in Warrenville was sexually abused by a male employee at the facility. The abuse consisted of repeated acts of oral sex and sexual intercourse. There was no doubt that the abuse occurred, and the employee ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual assault.

All told, the United States spends about $60 billion a year on locking people up. But there are also other, less obvious costs, including the effects on children left behind when parents are sent away to prison.

The Papua New Guinea government should abolish the death penalty instead of putting it back into effect, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a joint letter to Dr. Allan Marat, justice minister and attorney general.

Human Rights Watch writes to express concern over recent statements in Parliament suggesting that the death penalty might be soon implemented for the first time since Papua New Guinea gained self-governance and independence and that the Ministry of Justice may develop regulations to do so.

For years, we have been shocked by stories of the abuse — much of it sexual — of security detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. But prisoners are not just abused overseas. Rape and sexual violence are all too frequent here in our own backyard. If America is to reclaim its moral authority as a defender of human rights and dignity, it must start at home.

The new report and standards on prison rape – released today by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission – challenge prison officials to end this devastating and all too prevalent human rights violation.

The US Congress should amend a 13-year-old federal law that denies prisoners equal access to justice. “No Equal Justice: The Prison Litigation Reform Act in the United States,” addresses a law passed by Congress in 1996 that singles out lawsuits brought by prisoners for a host of burdens and restrictions that apply to no one else.

Saudi Arabia made important commitments on women's rights, on ending the juvenile death penalty and on other human rights issues during its review by the UN Human Rights Council on June 10, 2009 and should now work to carry out these reforms rapidly.