About Us
Sierra Leone’s detention facilities are characterized by chronic overcrowding, prolonged pre-trial detentions, inadequate living conditions, and widespread systemic neglect. These issues severely affect the physical and mental well-being of inmates, particularly among vulnerable groups such as women, children, and youth. Many detainees are held for years without trial, often for minor offenses, exacerbating their marginalization and deepening cycles of poverty and injustice.
Women and children face heightened risks, including exposure to violence, abuse, and lack of access to healthcare and education within detention facilities. Upon release, former detainees often encounter significant social stigma, unemployment, and limited opportunities for reintegration into society, further compounding the challenges they face.
In response to these pressing concerns, Prison Watch Sierra Leone (PWSL) plays a vital role in advocating for justice, dignity, and systemic reform. PWSL supports access to legal aid for individuals unjustly detained, ensuring that marginalized voices are heard, and that due process is upheld. It also facilitates skills training and social reintegration programs, equipping former detainees with the tools needed to rebuild their lives and contribute positively to their communities.
Moreover, PWSL actively advocates for humane detention conditions and comprehensive policy reforms aimed at addressing the root causes of incarceration issues. By engaging with policymakers, civil society, and the international community, PWSL seeks to create a more just and equitable justice system in Sierra Leone—one that respects human rights, promotes rehabilitation over punishment, and restores hope and dignity to those who have been most affected.
Our Mission
Our Mission is to defend human rights of persons deprived of their liberty. We monitor prisons, we investigate, we document and report incidents of human rights violations in places of detention. We assist people in detention with skills training and other forms of support, we train criminal justice actors, we work on knowledge generation and advocate for penal reform.
Our Vision
Our Vision is that Human Rights of persons held in detention are respected and fulfilled. Persons in conflict with the law receive support to reform and become productive and respected members of society.
Our Mandate
- To maintain monitoring presence in the Twenty-one (21) functional correctional centers, Three (3) juvenile homes and selected police stations across the country.
- To investigate, document and report incidents of human rights violations in places of detention.
- To collect data on all persons passing through the correctional centers, juvenile homes and the selected police stations and use such data for research purposes.
- To create collaboration with like-mind organization (locally and internationally) to promote and protect the rights of persons in places of detention in Sierra Leone.
- To work with the Sierra Leone correctional Service to make lives.
Our Strategy
- Daily/weekly detention monitoring visits.
- Data collection, research and knowledge.
- Innovative detention monitoring – female Icon Sessions (FIS), Juvenile Social Intervention (JSI) and Inmate’s Leaders Meetings (ILMs)
- Collaboration and networking
- Humanitarian support
- Capacity building support for detention managers
Our Values
We have a team of dedicated and committed persons driven by their passion to serve humanity and transform lives even in detention. The team consist of persons with shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes our passion to serve people who are less fortunate. We have a total sixteen (16) permanent staff (ten in the head office and six in the regional office) we are also joined in the mission by our Human Rights and Detention Monitors (HRDMs) across the country. They serve as our foot soldier in the detention facilities where we maintain presence.
Our Team
We have a team of dedicated and committed persons driven by their passion to serve humanity and transform lives even in detention. The team consist of persons with shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes our passion to serve people who are less fortunate. We have a total sixteen (16) permanent staff (ten in the head office and six in the regional office) we are also joined in the mission by our Human Rights and Detention Monitors (HRDMs) across the country. They serve as our foot soldier in the detention facilities where we maintain presence.