In many parts of the world, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), mental health remains one of the most overlooked public health issues—especially within the prison system. At least one in seven incarcerated individuals suffers from a serious mental illness, and over half have a history of mental health issues. These numbers are even higher in low-income countries, where access to diagnosis, care, and treatment is extremely limited.

People with mental illness in prison represent a doubly marginalized group: stigmatized both by their incarceration and by their health condition. Yet prisons are not isolated from society—they reflect and amplify wider societal issues. Mental illness often stems from poverty, and the prison system tends to exacerbate cycles of violence, recidivism, and social exclusion. What happens inside prison walls reverberates far beyond them, creating a brutal “carceral continuum” that poses a serious, unresolved public health challenge.

Despite this, mental health services in detention facilities remain strikingly absent across both high- and low-income countries. In many crisis-affected and impoverished regions, psychiatric infrastructure has stagnated or even declined over the past decades, while the need for mental health support has only grown. In response to this crisis, global attention has increasingly turned to digital and technological solutions—especially in places where human resources are limited.

But can technology really offer meaningful solutions to deeply social and systemic problems? Across the Global South and beyond, questions about the risks of “techno-solutionism” are being raised with increasing urgency. From data privacy concerns and algorithmic bias to the threat of technocolonialism and the commodification of care, the risks of digital mental health interventions are particularly acute. In contexts like the DRC, where local knowledge, history, and advocacy efforts are rich but under-supported, these debates take on special importance.

This is the backdrop for a HUD-organized upcoming exploratory workshop Malembe, Malembe: Detention, Mental Health, and Technology, which takes place in Kinshasa the DRC. Bringing together Congolese and international experts—from doctors, researchers, and civil society actors to mental health advocates and designers—this event aims to critically examine the intersections of mental health, incarceration, and emerging technologies.

Rather than jumping straight to technological fixes, this workshop will start by listening. We seek to learn from those already doing the difficult, often invisible work of mental health care in the DRC. What solutions already exist? What challenges persist? And how can any future interventions—technological or otherwise—build on and support this essential groundwork?

The workshop takes place on May 19th and 20th 2025, and an update on our findings will feature on this website immediately after. The workshop forms part of the core HUD research track – Designing Detention Differently.