Our Mission
Challenging Deprivation of Liberty in All Its Forms
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TJI’s mission is to challenge deprivation of liberty in all its forms and to confront the carceral continuum wherever it extends by mobilising the international human rights framework.
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The carceral continuum envelops the globe in an intricate and expanding matrix of institutions, practices, and legal regimes through which states exercise coercive control over bodies and movement. Deprivation of liberty takes many forms within this, extending far beyond prison walls. While prisons remain its most recognised manifestation, confinement also occurs through a myriad of forms, including e.g. immigration detention, administrative and military detention, closed asylum facilities, debtor's detention and secure psychiatric hospitals. These sites, though not always recognised as places of detention and often operating under the language of care, reproduce the same carceral mechanisms of coercion and restriction of movement that define imprisonment.​
Inspired by Critical Resistance
In working towards this mission, our first priority is to secure individuals' freedom from captivity by working with those detained to bring their cases before the UN Special Procedures. To this end, we also engage in broader advocacy, narrative disruption/building, capacity-building and assist the movement against cages generally with our human rights expertise.
Prefiguring a World Free of Cages
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We are equally committed to how we work. TJI strives to prefigure the world we seek to build: one free from cages in all their forms. We operate through a non-hierarchical, collaborative structure that values all contributions and centres accountability, care, and shared responsibility. In our casework, we reject traditional lawyer–client hierarchies, working instead in partnership with those directly affected, who retain agency and decision-making power throughout.
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Increasing Access to Human Rights Mechanisms
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We also seek to challenge the inaccessibility of human rights mechanisms, which too often remain confined to those with formal legal training. By sharing knowledge, tools, and resources, and by creating accessible, collaborative spaces for legal work—including tailored drafting workshops for those in detention—we aim to redistribute power, so that individuals and communities can engage with and use these mechanisms on their own terms.
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Reach out to us if you wish to work with us on submitting a complaint.