Topic: Prison Reform
Country: Sudan
Delegate Name: Sean Godsey
School: Ann Arbor Community High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Sudan position papers GLIMUN 2008 committees
Historically Sudan's prison system has not been the best. This is because we lack the sufficient funds needed for a competent prison system. We have a growing prison population but cannot expand our prisons to fit these new prisoners; this results in poor prison living conditions. There is also a problem with corruption among guards. Another problem is that our prison records are not well kept.
However all of that is starting to change. In 2005, the region of Southern Sudan was granted autonomy through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This agreement was made through civil war, which all but destroyed many of our prisons. As such the government of Southern Sudan requested assistance with significantly improving our prison system.
Beginning in December 2007, a group consisting of International Centre for Criminal Law Reform, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations Mission in Sudan, the Government of Southern Sudan, and with funding from the Global Peace and Security fund of the Government of Canada began work to reform our prisons and prison system. This project is designed around a three-pronged approach. The first is building leadership capacity within prison service. The second is developing information management capacity. The final "prong" is a strong locally owned and comprehensive legislative and policy framework.
As you can see, Sudan along with our friends are hard at work to bring our prison system up to international standards. We have accomplished some of our goals already, but there is still much work to be done. The success of this project will be based on the continuing inter-agency cooperation and the value of strong local ownership in this program.
