![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The author directs the World Prison Research Programme at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, based at Birkbeck (University of London). The programme’s research team monitors trends in world prison populations and examines the causes and the consequences of rising levels of imprisonment. A core component of the programme involves compiling and hosting the World Prison Brief, an online database providing free access to information about prison systems throughout the world. This Commentary revisits key findings from the Programme’s ongoing work on prison population growth and its links to prison overcrowding and poor standards of prison healthcare. Within this context, some of the main impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on prison systems worldwide will be discussed, with a focus on measures taken to reduce prison population sizes and restrictions put in place in prison regimes (including suspending social and other visits to prisons, home or work leave for prisoners, and related restrictions) to help control spread of the virus. Compensatory measures introduced to lessen the adverse effects of greater isolation and reduced contact with the outside world are discussed. It is argued that the pandemic has revealed an unprecedented need for a more health-informed approach to penal reform.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The countries under study in the project are: Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, the United States of America, India, Thailand, England & Wales, Hungary, the Netherlands and Australia. https://www.icpr.org.uk/theme/prisons-and-use-imprisonment/understanding-and-reducing-use-imprisonment-ten-countries.
2. Global tracking conducted by Justice Project Pakistan: at https://www.jpp.org.pk/covid19-prisoners/.
3. These materials can be found under “resources” on our World Prison Brief site at: https://www.prisonstudies.org/news/news-covid-19-and-prisons.
4. All prison population data in this Commentary are drawn from the World Prison Brief site (except where stated), and reflect the latest available figures as at 10 September 2020. World Prison Brief data are updated on the website on a monthly basis, using data largely derived from governmental or other official sources. https://www.prisonstudies.org/.
5. National occupancy levels can be found on each country page on the World Prison Brief website; in addition, the “Highest to Lowest” function can be selected to rank countries globally or regionally, by occupancy level.
6. Examples include Human Rights Watch, the International Legal Foundation, Penal Reform International, Fair Trials, the European Prisons Observatory, Center for Crime and Justice Studies, the Thailand Institute of Justice, and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. For further information, see the COVID-19 news and resources page on our World Prison Brief website at: https://www.prisonstudies.org/news/news-covid-19-and-prisons.
7. Estimated occupancy levels based on latest official capacity data available can be found on the World Prison Brief website.
8. Prison Policy Initiative, ‘Jails and prisons have reduced their populations in the face of the pandemic, but not enough to save lives’, article, 5 August 2020, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/08/05/jails-vs-prisons-update-2/.
9. The Marshall Project, “Prison populations drop by 100,000 during pandemic: but not because of COVID-19 releases”, article, 16 July 2020, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/07/16/prison-populations-drop-by-100-000-during-pandemic.
10. The independent monitoring boards are statutory bodies performing the role of the national preventive mechanism in the United Kingdom following ratification of the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
11. Thailand Bail, 23 August 2020, “Thailand royal pardon 2020: many in Thai prisons receive sentence reductions”. http://www.thailandbail.com/thailand-royal-pardon-2020-many-in-thai-prisons-receive-sentence-reductions/.
12. Extract from draft annual report of an English prison’s Independent Monitoring Board, provided to author by a member of the board.
13. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 6 August 2020, “Families of incarcerated people rally outside Cuomo’s office to demand visitation rights.” https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2020/08/06/families-of-incarcerated-people-rally-outside-cuomos-office-to-demand-visitation-rights/.
14. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision of New York’s website states that the Family Reunion Program “provides approved incarcerated individuals and their families the opportunity to meet for a designated period of time in a private home-like setting”. https://doccs.ny.gov/family-reunion-program.
15. Around one quarter of all prisoners in Thailand are serving sentences ranging between 10 and 50 years. At least 80% of the country’s sentenced prisoners have been convicted of drug offenses. Thailand Institute of Justice, March 2020, Report on the COVID-19 situation in prisons and policy recommendations for Thailand.
16. Thailand Institute of Justice (fn 17).
17. Information drawn from interviews with serving prisoners conducted in the course of ICPR’s ongoing project Understanding and reducing the use of imprisonment in ten countries (see fn 1).
18. Delaware News Journal, 17 April, 2020, “Delaware officials: Prisoners won’t get masks or release during COVID-19 fight”, https://eu.delawareonline.com/story/news/2020/04/16/delaware-officials-prisoners-wont-get-masks-release-during-coronavirus-fight/2988586001/.
19. As fn. 2 above.
20. Information obtained in early September from a deputy governor of a prison holding around 800 inmates.
21. See fn 20.
22. In the USA, several studies have demonstrated the significant capacity for community spread of COVID-19 infections in areas with jails and prisons. See for example, Ollove (Citation2020).
23. For the most comprehensive data on prison population trends since 2000 see Walmsley (Citation2018).