ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rabeya Dewan

Rabeya Dewan is a Lecturer at the Department of Law, Uttara University, Bangladesh. She graduated from Jahangirnagar University law school and is an alumnus of the 21 st HRSS. She previously worked as a Research Assistant at Baul & Associates on the Child-Friendly Case Management Guideline Project. She has co-authored chapters in the book Street Children of Bangladesh: Making Them Visible and published scholarly work on contemporary human rights issues.

POSTS BY Rabeya Dewan

October 30, 2026

Rabeya Dewan

What Good Does Imprisonment Do? The Debate of “Open Vs Closed Prisons”

Imprisonment has long been regarded as one of the central instruments of criminal justice. Despite its widespread use across jurisdictions, a fundamental question persists: what is imprisonment actually meant to achieve? Is it only a mechanism of punishment, intended to impose suffering proportionate to wrongdoing, or is it a tool for reform, aimed at preparing […]

July 6, 2026

Rabeya Dewan

Beyond Bars: Can Open Prisons Better Protect Human Rights?

For centuries, prisons have been imagined through a familiar image: towering walls, iron bars, locked cells, razor wire, and armed guards. We have come to associate punishment with confinement so completely that the very idea of a prison without walls appears almost contradictory. Yet such prisons exist, and in many parts of the world (especially […]