Confinement with No Rights. Perceptions of Inmates’ Relatives Regarding Measures for COVID-19 Control Implemented in Mexican Prisons

ABSTRACT

Based on a participatory study design, this article describes how a group of family members of people deprived of liberty (PDL) experienced the COVID-19 control measures implemented in Mexico’s prisons. We conducted 28 in-depth interviews and analyzed them using ATLAS.ti. We found that the measures implemented in Mexican prisons to avoid the spread of COVID-19 focused mainly on suspension of visitation and PDL confinement. The isolation imposed on PDL impacted their living conditions, making them more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 due to lack of access to essential services, food, and hygiene supplies. Visit restrictions and PDL isolation also impacted PDL relatives’ health and socioeconomic conditions. Our findings indicate that the consequences of COVID-19 control actions in Mexican prisons differ according to the gender and jurisdiction of PDL. Women in federal prisons were more isolated, while those in local ones were more deprived of basic supplies. Imprisoned women’s isolation has especially severe effects on the mental and physical health of their elderly parents and children. The results show how the measures adopted to control COVID-19 outbreaks in Mexican prisons have exacerbated the preexisting systemic violence experienced by PDL and their families and how they have failed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in these settings. These findings provide support for the health-informed penal reform of Mexican prisons.

KEYWORDS:

• Prisons
• Mexico
• COVID-19
• sanitary protocols
• gender disparities
• familieIntroduction

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the reviewer’s comments and suggestions which allowed us to improve the quality of this manuscript. The authors also thank peer-researchers Viridiana Molina, Beatriz Maldonado, Guadalupe Jiménez, and Natacha Lopvet for their comments and reflections on this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The admission of people without convictions to prisons through a penal action called “preventive prison”, or pre-trial detention, has been happening since 2008 with the aim of enhancing the efficiency of the judicial system by requiring the immediate incarceration of people accused of serious crimes, such as homicides and organized crime. A 2019 reform of the penal code added another group of felonies, such as robbery, sexual violence, and corruption, among others, to qualify for pre-trial detention, resulting in an increased number of people being incarcerated without having been sentenced (Gandaria, 2021). Between 2020 and 2021, the primary offenses that led to pre-trial detention were robbery and, in smaller proportions, drug-related crimes, homicide, family violence, and sexual assaults. When disaggregated by gender, drug-related offenses are the leading crime for which women receive pre-trial detentions, whereas men mostly receive pre-trial detention for sexual assaults, domestic violence, and homicides (Ortega et al., n.d.).

2. Resolution 2020-12-17.

3. One of them works in Mexico City Feminine Jail; another works in two male-occupied Mexico City jails; and a third works with the relatives of PDL incarcerated in various state prisons throughout the country.

4. In six out of 32 states prison systems, visits were suspended from April to October 2020; in four local systems, visits were suspended for at least five months; four local systems let each jail decide when to suspend visits and when to allow them again. Five systems, including that of Mexico City, did not suspend visits entirely but reduced the number of visits allowed (Calzada et al., 2021).

5. Even though judicial activities were considered essential during the pandemic (Ortega et al., n.d.).

6. For example, some of the interviewees reported that before the pandemic they spent an average of 1,500 Mexican pesos (US $73.42) every two weeks per visit, while, during the pandemic, they spent 1,000 Mexican pesos (US $48.95) per week.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Open Society Foundations [OR2020-74268].