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Report from Amnesty International and Omega Foundation: Across the world peaceful protesters have faced waves of repression from police and military forces in deliberate attempts...
Themes: Activism | Human Rights | Policing | Protests
Type: Report
Year: 2023
Below is a summarised version of the Cape Declaration that the participants of the convening of the Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status, drafted in...
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Activism | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Courts | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Pre-trial Detention | Prisons | Protests | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements | Flagship
Year: 2023
From Fair Trials: What a person suspected of a crime says or doesn’t say in police custody can have a significant impact on an investigation...
Themes: Courts | Policing | Pre-trial Detention
Type: Video
Year: 2023
Our latest campaign digest is out now. With highlights from the campaign activities and partners updates, the latest digest provides an overview of what has...
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Activism | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Courts | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Pre-trial Detention | Prisons | Protests | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Digest
Year: 2023
The participants of the convening of the Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status, held in Stellenbosch, South Africa between 27 and 29 September 2022 gathered...
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Activism | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Courts | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Pre-trial Detention | Prisons | Protests | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements | Flagship
Year: 2023
From partner Prison Reform International: This discussion guide sets out findings from an exploratory study on Roma persons’ access to and experience of non-custodial sanctions...
Themes: Alternatives to Criminalisation | Human Rights | Prisons
Type: Guidelines | Report
Year: 2023
Prisons, often overcrowded and unsanitary, permanently affect the physical and mental health of prisoners. Prison Insider examines addictive disorders in prison and the treatment that...
Themes: Alternatives to Criminalisation | Human Rights | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Testimonials
Year: 2023
Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Listings
Year: 2023
Original article: ICJ publishes a new set of legal principles to address the harmful human rights impact of unjustified criminalization of individuals and entire communities....
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Public Health | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Guidelines
Year: 2023
Resources compiled by partner Harm Reduction International: 35 countries retain the death penalty for drugs, even though it is a violation of international law. Drug...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Guidelines | Report | Testimonials
Year: 2023
Partner IDPC’s Drug decriminalisation [e]Course is a free-to-access online learning course that is open to anyone interested in this important topic. When done properly, the...
Themes: Human Rights | Public Health
Type: Training Materials
Year: 2023
A factsheet on using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to underpin advocacy around the right to adequate housing.
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2022
On 4 December 2020, the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (the Court) rendered a landmark Advisory Opinion on the consonance of the Vagrancy Laws with...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights
Type: Judgements | Submission/Statements | Flagship
Year: 2022
Themes: Petty Offences | Public Health
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2022
Our latest campaign digest is out now. With highlights from the campaign actvities and campaign partners updates, the latest digest provides an overview of what...
Type: Digest
Year: 2022
Campaign partner, National Homelessness Law Center, collates helpful resources for combatting communities’ growing habit of criminalizing homelessness.
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Guidelines | Listings
Year: 2022
For the U.S. review by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Miami Law Human Rights Clinic, National Homelessness Law Center, and...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Submission/Statements
Year: 2022
Petty Offences are basically those offences that were created by colonial masters in attempt to have a strong hold on people and right to self-expression...
Themes: Petty Offences
Type: Report
Year: 2022
The present guidelines complement and should be read in conjunction with the Committee’s general comment No. 5 (2017) on living independently and being included in...
Themes: Alternatives to Criminalisation | Human Rights | Public Health
Type: Guidelines
Year: 2022
A factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as tenant rights and...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2022
A factsheet on a human rights approach to housing equality, outlining good practices and recommendations for the USA advocates.
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2022
A short video tailored to local populations, raising awareness about the ‘loitering’ law in use in Sierra Leone.
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Courts | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Prisons | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Video
Year: 2022
List of Themes Submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) For the United States Review
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2022
Francophone members of the Campaign and other organisations kickstarted ther advocacy efforts with the Organisation de la Francophonie, with the launching of the Djerba Declaration...
Themes: Petty Offences | Activism | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Courts | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Pre-trial Detention | Prisons | Protests | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements | Flagship
Year: 2022
On 1 July 2021, the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF), together with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), hosted a webinar to launch...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights
Type: Report
Year: 2021
The seminar of experts is one of several activities organized by the Organization Against Torture in Tunisia as part of the pan-African campaign “Poverty is...
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation
Type: Report
Year: 2021
The Black Lives Matter movement, along with homelessness advocates, have exposed how the criminal justice system fails to address homelessness and how it has disproportionately...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
Factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as tenant rights and government...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Public Health | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
Themes: Petty Offences | Courts | Human Rights
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2021
The University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic (“Clinic”), National Homelessness Law Center (“Law Center”), and Leilani Farha respectfully submit this brief as...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Courts | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Judgements
Year: 2021
The, better known as COVID-19, has triggered a worldwide pandemic which has also affected Nigeria. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was announced...
Themes: Public Health | Prisons
Type: Report
Year: 2021
Access to justice has long seemed elusive for persons with various intellectual or psychosocial disabilities in Kenya. The fear of a child with an intellectual or psychosocial...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Public Health
Type: Report
Year: 2021
Purpose: To receive an overview on laws and regulations at national, federal state or local level that may still prohibit or sanction begging, staying, sleeping, easting...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Guidelines | Listings | Submission/Statements
Year: 2021
This report highlights pressing issues in Nepal’s juvenile justice system. It reveals initial findings of a 2021 survey of 917 detained juveniles and includes case...
Themes: Petty Offences | Fees and Fines | Prisons
Type: Report
Year: 2021
Factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as tenant rights and government...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
On behalf of the stakeholders present, the opening address was delivered by Mrs. Sashi Nchito who is a member of the SADC-LA Executive Committee. Sashi...
Themes: Petty Offences
Type: Report
Year: 2021
A factsheet on the ‘Right to Housing’ produced by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law and the National Homelessness...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Cost of Exclusion | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2021
Submitted to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing & the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights by the Campaign to...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2021
The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC)’s mission is to promote and advance human rights, democratic governance, rule of law and access to justice in Southern...
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Courts | Fees and Fines | Policing | Prisons
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2021
Factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as tenant rights and government...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
Factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as tenant rights and government...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
Factsheet on the right to housing and on the equality and affordability components of the right to housing, as well as, tenant rights and government...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Public Health | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary
Year: 2021
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, various countries in the Southern African region have put in place restrictions on gatherings, free movement, commerce and expression....
Themes: Human Rights | Public Health
Type: Report
Year: 2020
Proposed by-law amendments On 15 May 2020, ACJR made a submission dissuading the City of Cape Town from implementing a bill seeking to provide law-enforcement...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Policing
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
Quality of victim support services and democratic policing Campaign partner, Africa Criminal Justice Reform (ACJR) provided a written representation to the Office of the Western...
Themes: Human Rights | Policing
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
Campaign partern, the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) presented this submission to the Portfolio Committee on Police regarding policing practices in the enforcement of...
Themes: Human Rights | Policing | Public Health
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) held the fifth in a series of webinars on the impact of Covid-19 on...
Themes: Human Rights | Public Health
Type: Report
Year: 2020
Recommendations for urgent and systemic reform to prevent and address human rights violations of people in detention and serving sentences in the community, in the...
Themes: Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Report
Year: 2020
Ensuring an effective response With the rising spread of the pandemic COVID-19 across the Commonwealth and globally, this document has been prepared by the Commonwealth...
Themes: Courts | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Report
Year: 2020
Submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of the United States of America, Third Cycle, May 2020.
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) prepared these two documents to assist State prison departments, prison visitors and monitoring institutions in periodic monitoring of prisons and...
Themes: Public Health | Prisons
Year: 2020
Themes: Petty Offences | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
For centuries, and across the world, penal laws have been used to regulate urban spaces, with a cruel focus on relegating poor and marginalized groups...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Journal Article | Flagship
Year: 2020
Themes: Human Rights | Policing | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Digest | Journal Article
Year: 2020
In September 2019, the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law hosted a symposium on challenging petty offenses that criminalize poverty, marginalization,...
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Digest | Journal Article
Year: 2020
Themes: Petty Offences | Policing | Public Health | Prisons
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
The issues of arbitrary arrest, the impact on the poor of criminalisation and enforcement of minor offences, and of overcrowding levels in many African systems...
Themes: Petty Offences | Public Health
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
Across the world, vagrancy offenses criminalize vaguely defined, heterogeneous forms of misconduct loosely associated with idleness. A court attempting to apply such laws has noted...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Policing | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Journal Article | Flagship
Year: 2020
Our submission highlights problematic municipal by-laws that have the effect of criminalising urban poverty, and entrenching discrimination and social-economic marginalisation. These laws are relevant to...
Themes: Petty Offences | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
We welcome the opportunity to provide comments on the City of Cape Town’s proposed amendments to the Streets, Public Places and the Prevention of Noise...
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Policing | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Submission/Statements
Year: 2020
Detention is not the appropriate sanction for the contravention of petty laws. This fact sheet provides an overview of non-custodial sanctions or orders a court...
Themes: Petty Offences | Courts
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Flagship
Year: 2020
Petty Offenses Symposium Report Throughout the globe, petty offenses, such as loitering laws, are used to exert social control. They criminalize poverty, increase marginalization, and...
Themes: Petty Offences | #PoorNotGuilty | Policing | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Report
Year: 2019
Themes: Petty Offences | Human Rights | Policing
Type: News Article
Year: 2019
Housing is a human right. While three-quarters of Americans agree that housing is a human right, and an increasing number of elected officials are addressing...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Human Rights | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Report
Year: 2019
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) approved a model law intended to transform the Police services in Africa from what they termed as oppressive to one...
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing | Prisons
Type: Guidelines | Training Materials | Flagship
Year: 2019
This factsheet highlighted alternative options that a prosecutor can agree to with regard to petty offences. The factsheet advocates that diversion options embedded in the...
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Policing
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Flagship
Year: 2019
Alternatives to arrest and detention Petty offences are generally minor, non-violent and victimless. Interventions by the criminal justice system should always be kept to the...
Themes: Petty Offences | Alternatives to Criminalisation | Fees and Fines | Policing
Type: Briefing/Factsheet/Summary | Flagship
Year: 2019
The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in an action brought by six current or formerly homeless City...
Themes: #PoorNotGuilty | Courts | Use of Public Spaces
Type: Judgements
Year: 2018
The criminal justice system in many African countries is characterized by widespread criminalization and punishment of petty offenses through arbitrary arrests which provides a basis...
Themes: Petty Offences
Type: Guidelines | Flagship
Year: 2018
A Research Report on the Human Rights Challenges across two South African provinces Within a context where gender-based violence (GBV) is endemic, sex workers in...
Themes: Petty Offences | Policing
Type: Report
Year: 2017
Evidence and Arguments for the Decriminalisation and Declassification of Petty Offences The Ouagadougou Declaration and Plan of Action on Accelerating Prison and Penal Reform in...
Themes: Petty Offences | Fees and Fines | Human Rights | Policing
Type: Report | Flagship
Year: 2015

The Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status is a coalition of organisations from across the world that advocate for the repeal of laws that target people based on poverty, status or for their activism.
@DecrimPS
#DecrimPoverty | #DecrimStatus | #DecrimActivism