Overcrowding, malnutrition and infectious diseases have led to an upsurge of deaths for Haiti’s inmates. Many of them have waited for months in appalling squalor without being charged for a crime.
“Straight up: This is hell. Getting locked up in Haiti will drive you crazy if it doesn’t kill you first,” said Vangeliste Bazile, a homicide suspect who is among the about 80 percent of those incarcerated who have not been convicted of a crime but are held in prolonged pretrial detention waiting for their chance to see a judge.
