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.

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.

The US Congress should pass a proposed law to end the sentencing of youth offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At least 2,574 individuals in the United States are serving these sentences for crimes they committed before they were 18 years old. The United States is the only country that uses such sentences for crimes committed by juveniles.

Iran should immediately call off the execution scheduled for May 6, 2009, of two juvenile offenders.