Haiti: When Police Stations Turn into Prisons
By Wideberlin SENEXANT · Port-au-Prince
· 3 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
In a report published on May 30, 2025, the RNDDH presents a damning assessment of several police stations and sub-stations in Haiti's West Department. It reveals illegal and inhumane conditions in which hundreds of people live. This situation stems directly from the assaults on prisons such as Croix-des-Bouquets or the National Penitentiary.
Port-au-Prince, May 31, 2025 - What was supposed to be a temporary space for police custody has become a place of prolonged suffering. This is the alarm raised by the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), after conducting an investigation in ten police stations in the West Department. Through this report, the organization denounces a worrying deviation in Haiti's detention system: the collapse of the formal prison system has led to the de facto transformation of police stations into substitute prisons.
An Alarming Situation
Since the attacks in March 2024 against the capital's main penitentiary institutions, particularly in Port-au-Prince and Croix-des-Bouquets, authorities have ceased using several prisons, including those in Cabaret and Arcahaie. The result: police custody cells in police stations, intended to hold arrested individuals only briefly, have become places of prolonged and anarchic detention. This shift is not without consequences. In Delmas 33, 68 people are crammed into four cramped cells. Some sleep standing or suspended in improvised hammocks due to lack of space. In Pétion-Ville, 48 people are held, several of whom have never seen a judge since their arrest. In Port-au-Prince, 61 detainees are crammed into five cells, in darkness, without ventilation, with rodents and insects. In Tabarre, 41 prisoners, deprived of toilets, must relieve themselves in containers left on the floor. In Canapé-Vert, 28 others share two unsanitary cells, sometimes without knowing why they were arrested. And these are just a few examples among many others. The report highlights the blatant violation of the most fundamental rights. Men, women, sometimes even minors, languish for months in spaces intended for a maximum of a few days. Some have been there for over a year without a single hearing. Detainees already convicted are not transferred to the designated detention centers. Others are sent back to cells after a visit to the public prosecutor's office, without explanation. Justice is at a standstill in a country where exception becomes the norm. Humanitarian Conditions
The health consequences are equally disastrous. The RNDDH reports cases of tuberculosis, scabies, chronic itching, vaginal infections, and boils. In poorly ventilated, damp, and sometimes completely dark cells, diseases spread rapidly. Cleaning, when it is carried out, is not enough to stem the deterioration of living conditions. Sick detainees remain without care, like the man in Canapé-Vert who has been spitting blood for months without having seen a doctor. In this chaos, solidarity among detainees is sometimes the only recourse for survival. Many receive no visits. They have no water, no food, no mattresses, no care. The luckiest share the little they receive with those who have nothing. In some cases, even police officers, out of their own pockets, buy a little food for the detainees. A human gesture in an inhumane system. While some police stations like Borne-Soldat, Delmas 62, or Petit-Goâve present less degrading conditions, these are exceptions in a generally bleak landscape. In Petit-Goâve, for example, authorities limit the detention period to eight days. This remains illegal given the 48 hours stipulated by the Constitution, but it is much better than the months of retention observed elsewhere. The Urgency to Act
The RNDDH demands that judicial authorities immediately hear those arrested months ago. It also calls for the immediate transfer of convicted individuals to functional prisons, the rehabilitation of the Pétion-Ville civil prison, and the provision of water, food, and sanitary products in all police stations. Finally, it reiterates that human dignity cannot be suspended, even in times of crisis. The Haitian state, the report concludes, cannot continue to offload its responsibilities onto police stations transformed into makeshift prisons. Behind the rusty bars of police stations, human lives are fading away in indifference. Wideberlin Sénexant
Since the attacks in March 2024 against the capital's main penitentiary institutions, particularly in Port-au-Prince and Croix-des-Bouquets, authorities have ceased using several prisons, including those in Cabaret and Arcahaie. The result: police custody cells in police stations, intended to hold arrested individuals only briefly, have become places of prolonged and anarchic detention. This shift is not without consequences. In Delmas 33, 68 people are crammed into four cramped cells. Some sleep standing or suspended in improvised hammocks due to lack of space. In Pétion-Ville, 48 people are held, several of whom have never seen a judge since their arrest. In Port-au-Prince, 61 detainees are crammed into five cells, in darkness, without ventilation, with rodents and insects. In Tabarre, 41 prisoners, deprived of toilets, must relieve themselves in containers left on the floor. In Canapé-Vert, 28 others share two unsanitary cells, sometimes without knowing why they were arrested. And these are just a few examples among many others. The report highlights the blatant violation of the most fundamental rights. Men, women, sometimes even minors, languish for months in spaces intended for a maximum of a few days. Some have been there for over a year without a single hearing. Detainees already convicted are not transferred to the designated detention centers. Others are sent back to cells after a visit to the public prosecutor's office, without explanation. Justice is at a standstill in a country where exception becomes the norm. Humanitarian Conditions
The health consequences are equally disastrous. The RNDDH reports cases of tuberculosis, scabies, chronic itching, vaginal infections, and boils. In poorly ventilated, damp, and sometimes completely dark cells, diseases spread rapidly. Cleaning, when it is carried out, is not enough to stem the deterioration of living conditions. Sick detainees remain without care, like the man in Canapé-Vert who has been spitting blood for months without having seen a doctor. In this chaos, solidarity among detainees is sometimes the only recourse for survival. Many receive no visits. They have no water, no food, no mattresses, no care. The luckiest share the little they receive with those who have nothing. In some cases, even police officers, out of their own pockets, buy a little food for the detainees. A human gesture in an inhumane system. While some police stations like Borne-Soldat, Delmas 62, or Petit-Goâve present less degrading conditions, these are exceptions in a generally bleak landscape. In Petit-Goâve, for example, authorities limit the detention period to eight days. This remains illegal given the 48 hours stipulated by the Constitution, but it is much better than the months of retention observed elsewhere. The Urgency to Act
The RNDDH demands that judicial authorities immediately hear those arrested months ago. It also calls for the immediate transfer of convicted individuals to functional prisons, the rehabilitation of the Pétion-Ville civil prison, and the provision of water, food, and sanitary products in all police stations. Finally, it reiterates that human dignity cannot be suspended, even in times of crisis. The Haitian state, the report concludes, cannot continue to offload its responsibilities onto police stations transformed into makeshift prisons. Behind the rusty bars of police stations, human lives are fading away in indifference. Wideberlin Sénexant
