The Red Folder

Archived from August 26, 2024.

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

Publishing since January 2024.

Click here to test your knowledge of the stories covered this week with our weekly Extemp Questions!

International Stories

4 key international stories for the week:

1) The UK’s Can’t Get Out of Jail Free For This Sahana Srikanth

As of 2024, the UK has the highest number of prisoners of any Western European country, with the prison population in England and Wales reaching 87, 395 incarcerated. However, the magnitude of this problem is worsened when recognizing that these prisons are about to reach their limit. And the prisoners have reached theirs as well.

According to figures released by the Ministry of Justice, the UK’s prisons are scarcely at a usable capacity, with less than 1,500 available spaces in the entirety of England and Wales. Prison governors have sounded alarms by warning that immediate interventions are needed to prevent prison systems from collapsing. The Prison Governors Association, which represents over 95% of prison managers, wrote a letter to UK’s political leaders on June 25th, emphasizing that the criminal justice system “stands on the precipice of failure.” Plagued by court delays, poor pay, crumbling buildings, and protests, rule of law is slowly dissipating. Recent events in the UK only exposed why reform must happen urgently.

Following the tragic murders of three young girls at a dance event in Stockport on July 29, 2024, false information began to circulate online about the perpetrator. Claims that the suspect was an Islamic migrant spread on social media, leading to violent anti-Muslim protests and attempts to attack the town’s mosque. These events catalyzed gatherings across the nation, including riots, clashes with police, targeted attacks on Muslims, missiles thrown at mosques, police officers injured, and the destruction of businesses owned by marginalized communities. Several thousands have been implicated in these mass events, and more than 100 arrests were made in Downing Street following clashes with police. Each protest has involved a few hundred people, with a total of 400 arrested since the disturbances started and over 120 charged.

Because the UK was forced to engage in the mass detention of protesters, however, a prison system that is at 150% capacity won’t be able to safely contain more inmates. Hence, HM Prison and Probation Service has prepared Operation Early Dawn, a plan that prevents inmates being taken from police cells to courts unless a prison place is available. Internal documents state that prison staff will assess the number of inmates held by police daily to determine how many can be taken to court hearings, how many can be released on bail, and how many can have cases delayed.

But why do these emergency measures matter?

Addressing the problems beneath the present system can significantly help the UK. Overcrowded UK Prisons lead to violence and limited resources. As prisons reach their operational capacity, problems with health, safety, and efficiency begin to arise – prisoner’s rights are violated. In other nations, like Scandinavian countries, imprisonment is humane and rehabilitative and does not see the significant overcrowding that the U.K. does. Because of this, prison institutions have been stable with lower reconviction rates. Overcrowding has made it more difficult for the UK to accomplish this. Degrading living conditions and working standards create an unhealthy environment, mentally and physically. With the UK's England and Wales states seeing 4 prisoners per staff, violent incidents against staff are frequent and must be prevented. There has been a 37% increase in assaults among prisoners and a 223% increase in assaults against prison officers between 2013 and 2023. The UK’s confinement of prisoners for long periods of time within locked, poorly-maintained, and overcrowded cells triggers negative emotions that contribute to violent incidents.

Along with overcrowding, the physical infrastructure of the prison system is not supportive at all. Prisons in the UK face problems with dilapidated infrastructure, poor sanitation and limited access to basic necessities. Since 2010, the UK has failed to build enough prisons to match the long sentences and increased incarcerations the country has been seeing. Furthermore, prison budgets are excruciatingly low, remaining more than a tenth lower than it was in 2010. There are fewer staff than there were in 2010 with more than a third of prison officers being essentially inexperienced. Three-quarters of prisons have an inadequate rating from the prison inspectorate, which indicates a need for increased federal funding towards improving prison quality and staffing.

As if out of a movie, The Wandsworth Prison has rooted infrastructural failures that make living conditions abhorrent for inmates. High-wing ceilings are perfect roosts for pigeons, whose droppings can be found on the handrails and wing floors. Rats weave through hallway corridors among piles of rubbish. The former chaplain of the prison has compiled reports of prisoners who describe the area as ‘nasty,’ ‘cruel,’ and ‘violent.’ At least 20 more prisons have severe rodent infestations as well.

Hygiene is a basic human right that UK prison inmates have been fundamentally deprived of. One inmate reported that there was no hot water for basic sanitation during 40% of his sentence. Another example of the unfair standards of living within a UK prison is evident when noting that 140 men share six showers in one wing, with sanitation available only an hour a day. With unsanitary living conditions and animals thriving in the vicinity, medical conditions and disease are guaranteed to emerge. Even for non-communicable or chronic diseases, healthcare is scarcely available. One statistic suggests that at least 88 times in 10 months, prisoners were not given ‘critical medications’ needed for conditions like epilepsy.

It’s clear why measures are being proposed to develop new prisons, new infrastructure, and new rules for the UK. But as Jack Sheard from the Justice Gap notes, “people are sent to prisons as punishment. They are not sent to prisons to be punished. The refusal to appreciate this distinction has led to a fundamental moral failure.”

And he’s right. The purpose of imprisonment is to ensure that those who commit mistakes in the past do not repeat them in the future. Creating an environment free from overcrowding and unsanitary conditions can help improve the wellness of inmates and reduce recidivism. Therefore, it’s an institutional priority to start crafting urgent policies for change.

The UK has made fundamental moral failures in the past, but this time, it’s gotten out of hand. There shouldn’t be any “Get Out of Jail Free Cards” for the UK’s government when it comes to reforming their prison system.

Read more here:

3) India’s Great Act of Solidarity Boyana Nikolova

India has never really had a trailblazing record on women’s issues, especially in the medicinal field. Just one week ago, however, the health industry’s misogyny problem culminated in nationwide unrest: following the rape and murder of a young doctor, workers across India indefinitely went on strike. As nurses, surgeons, and workers from all professions in between continue to stand in solidarity with the victims of gender-based violence, it begs the question of whether the current state of sexism and healthcare is finally ready for change and more importantly, whether current sentiments are temporary or not.

Although decades of unequal and gendered treatment had already set the scene, the main exigency came from the horrific murder of a 31-year old trainee doctor. After working 20 hours of a 36 hour shift, (in itself a troubling glimpse into the industry,) the doctor had allegedly been attacked and murdered while napping. The family of the victim claimed that dozens of individuals were involved in the case, some supposedly working at the hospital. As news of the incident spread, so did Indians’ anger. National outrage quickly turned into action.

Healthcare workers across the country refused to accept non-emergency patients, demanding for a case to be launched by local police with at least one arrest connected to the crime. Protests intensified throughout the week, peaking at more than one million striking workers with thousands of participating hospitals and clinics.

Still, conditions for the strike were different across India: some groups agreed on an 11-day strike while others set a 72-hour deadline for an official response from the national government. Many workers were set on striking indefinitely, at least until justice had been brought. In any case, they elicited a strong reaction from the government. Now, clinicians are gradually returning to their jobs.

As one part of the government response, India’s Supreme Court designated a task force guaranteeing the safety of striking healthcare workers. For a brief moment, this was the most that protesters had heard from their federal government, but soon their more specific demands were also being addressed. India deemed the local police unit “incompetent” in solving the case and announced that the country’s federal crime unit, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI,) would be assuming the case. Millions of protesters, consisting of both indignant medicine workers and ordinary Indians that had taken to the streets, could see progress being made.

As their efforts have ultimately succeeded, strikes are now beginning to stop, although some are projected to continue into the following week. In the meantime, good news is continuing to come in: the CBI has taken a 31-year-old man into custody and is still actively investigating the matter. Other specific demands are also being met: India agreed to solidify a Central Protection Act, which would do more to shield healthcare professionals from violence. This kind of attention from the government into a case as tragic as this one may appear to be the bare minimum. And yet for India, it’s an extraordinary feat.

Gender-specific violence is incredibly common in the country and still, rarely punished. Roughly 90 separate cases of rape are reported every day (about 1 every 15 minutes,) with the actual number likely higher due to prevailing stigma associated with seeking out help. Lamentably, only 26-28% of reported cases actually lead to a conviction associated with the incident. In the case of the medicinal field and its harsh working reality, that percentage is rumored to be even lower.

Worse, other aspects of misogyny have become institutionalized. India currently has over 150 inherently sexist laws limiting women in the workforce. Some laws provide legal justification for marital rape and judge bias is believed to enforce the subjugation of women on a judicial level. All of this makes the resolution of a case like this one especially empowering for women across the nation.

Inspired activists have been looking for a breakthrough for decades and this may be the start of a revived women’s rights movement. For the sake of protecting women in healthcare and preventing tragic cases like this one from ever taking place, it’s time for major change to be started by the Indian government. Until then, we must depend on activism and grass-roots movements and see just how far they can take India.