In Haiti, more than eight in ten detainees are still waiting to be tried

As of 30 June 2026, 82 per cent of the 7,563 people held in Haiti's prisons had still not been tried, according to the UN Secretary-General's report on Haiti dated 14 July. Prisons were running at about 313 per cent of capacity, with an average of 0.31 m² of space per inmate.

The problem has a name: prolonged pretrial detention. It is not new. In an April 2023 report, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) already found that 82.7 per cent of detainees were awaiting trial. As of 8 April 2026, the UN counted 6,262 pretrial detainees out of 7,551, or 82.93 per cent.

A system under strain

The March 2024 breakouts deepened the disorder. On the night of 2 to 3 March 2024, gangs attacked the National Penitentiary and the Croix-des-Bouquets civil prison. According to Pierre Espérance, executive director of the RNDDH, quoted at the time by AFP, only about a hundred inmates remained at the National Penitentiary, which held about 3,800 before the attack.

On 19 January 2026, the Ministry of Justice launched a "national caravan" against prison overcrowding and prolonged pretrial detention. Its pilot phase, a habeas corpus hearing at the Port-au-Prince Court of First Instance, freed 19 people held for minor offences, according to the UN report of 14 April 2026.

On 28 May, a criminal justice chain monitoring committee brought together judges, prosecutors, the prison administration, the Office for the Protection of Citizens, the Bar Association and non-governmental organisations. It looked in particular at the Rehabilitation Centre for Minors in Conflict with the Law, which held more than 760 detainees, minors and adults, in a facility designed for 93 minors, according to the UN.

In Petit-Goâve, lawyers for the poorest

Many detainees cannot afford a lawyer. That is the premise of Haiti ARISE, a Christian organisation founded in 2003 by Marc and Lisa Honorat, whose Haitian office is in Grand-Goâve. Since April 2016 it has run a Bureau d'assistance judiciaire (BAJ), a legal aid office that represents people accused of minor offences before a judge, free of charge. The office is in Petit-Goâve, according to a video posted on Instagram by Lisa Honorat in late October 2026.

According to the organisation, the office recorded 1,048 cases between May 2016 and November 2024: 616 people were released, 293 were convicted, and 77 cases were still in progress. These are figures it puts forward and that NAGO has not been able to verify independently.

In her post, Lisa Honorat says the office does not take cases of drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse or first-degree murder, and that its services are funded by donors. On its website, the organisation says its prison work grew out of the story of one man, Jean Sylvio, held for a month in the Petit-Goâve prison in a cell shared with about 70 people.

In his April report, the UN Secretary-General welcomed the authorities' commitment to revive efforts against prolonged pretrial detention and to set up a dedicated working group, and called for faster implementation of the penal reform.