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Ethiopia's prison system consists of three federal prisons, 117 regional prisons, and many unofficial prisons. Prison and pretrial detention center conditions remained harsh and life threatening. Severe overcrowding was a problem. In September 2007 it was reported that there were 52,000 persons in prison. Earlier that year, prison populations decreased by 10,000 due to pardons but reportedly again increased due to increases in ethnic conflict and economic crimes.^[1]

Prison conditions have been reported as unsanitary and there was no budget for prison maintenance. Medical care was unreliable in federal prisons and almost nonexistent in regional prisons. The daily meal budget was approximately 5 Birr (50 cents) per prisoner, and many prisoners supplemented this with daily food deliveries from their family or by purchasing food from local vendors. Prisoners often had less than 22 square feet of sleeping space in a room that could contain up to 200 persons; sleeping in rotations was not uncommon in regional prisons.^[1]

Since a reorganization in October 2000, the Federal Police Commission reports to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, which in turn is responsible to the parliament; however, this subordination is loose in practice. In previous years, the police reported to the the Security, Immigration, and Refugees Affairs Authority, a unit of the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice.^[2] Local militias also operate as local security forces largely independent of the police and the Ethiopian military. Corruption is a perennial problem, particularly among traffic police who solicited bribes. The U.S. Department of State states that its contacts within the Ethiopian government report that the findings of investigations into abuses by local security forces, such as arbitrary detentions and beatings of civilians, are rarely made public. However, the Ethiopian government continued its efforts to train police and army recruits in human rights. During 2008 the government is seeking assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the local non-governmental organization Prison Fellowship Ethiopia (JFA-PFE), and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission to improve and professionalize its human rights training and curriculum. The JFA-PFE provided human rights training for police commissioners and members of the militia in 2008.^[1]

[edit] Secret police organizations

Central Revolutionary Investigation Department (CRID)

[edit] See also

Human rights in Ethiopia

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c "2008 Human Rights Reports: Ethiopia", Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, US State Department (accessed 8 July 2009)
^ "Ethiopia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices", Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, US State Department (accessed 9 July 2009)

[edit] Further reading

Dilip K. Das and Michael Palmiotto (eds.), World Police Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 2004.
World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional Systems, second edition, Gale, 2006
Sullivan, Larry E. Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005.

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[USSD-0] "2008 Human Rights Reports: Ethiopia", Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, US State Department (accessed 8 July 2009)

[1] "Ethiopia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices", Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, US State Department (accessed 9 July 2009)

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