Justice by the Numbers: Rwandan Prison Survey

• Activity Number: 394
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
• Author(s): Mary Gray*+
• Companies: American University
• Keywords: human rights ; justice ; surveys

Abstract

Two years after the genocide that killed 800,000 Rwandans, primarily Tutsis, there were 80,00-90,000 imprisoned in a country of a few million and the prison population continued to grow by as many as 10,000 per month, the only release being death. In spite of international horror over the brutal loss of life, international notions of justice demanded due process and some semblance of a speedy trial for the accused. The post-genocide Rwandan government rightly claimed that the fragile judicial system, deprived of most of its personnel and much of its infrastructure, could not handle the prospective case load. Donor governments who had already constructed several large new prisons asserted that however, horrible the crimes of which they were accused it was not acceptable to put them in prison and throw away the key. Why not, proposed representatives of the US and other nations, with the ag