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ABSTRACT
We review the nature and extent of COVID-19 outbreaks across corrections systems globally, and document the types of front-end, in-prison, and back-end mitigation strategies used to address the COVID-19 problem in the 50 countries with the largest prison systems; these countries house over 90% of the global prison population. For most countries, the reported rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths during the first phase of the pandemic are higher in prisons and jails than in the general community, but similar baseline data on the extent of outbreaks in the community corrections systems of these countries were unavailable. We find that: prison expansion has resulted in prison overcrowding in many large prison systems, making in-prison mitigation strategies harder to implement; large prison systems are characterized by inadequate prison infrastructure and health care services; and the current global prison population includes a significant number of individuals with poor physical and mental health, placing them “at risk” for infection, both in prison and in their home communities. Based on our review of the short-term impact of reforms on inmate and staff health, the size of the prison and jail population, and public safety, we recommend an aggressive three-pronged COVID-19-based corrections research agenda.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Official sources include country-specific government reports and interviews with government officials. Unofficial sources include reports and reviews by advocacy and watchdog groups, newspaper reports, and other sources.
2. Authors of the country-level reviews were asked to provide data on the response to the COVID-19 outbreaks in both institutional and community corrections.
3. A grassroot effort to create a global community corrections data base was initiated last year by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and George Mason University. For more details on the Global Community Corrections initiative, go to: www.globcci.org.
4. We provide detailed profiles of the nature and extent of the COVID-19 crisis within each global region in several separate reviews. See the articles by Rapisarda et al. (this volume).
5. This saying has been linked to several politicians (e.g., Winston Churchill) and political activists (e.g., Saul Alinsky); in the USA, it has been used recently by former president Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuael. See https://freakonomics.com/2009/08/13/quotes-uncovered-who-said-no-crisis-should-go-to-waste/
7. See, in particular, the commentary on the low official rates of COVID-19 outbreaks in China’s prisons (Li & Liu, this volume).
8. See Marmolejo et al.’s (Citation2020) discussion of the COVID-19 outbreaks in Latin America.
9. This assumption may be drawn due to preliminary evidence suggesting that COVID-19 contraction risk/death is greater in prisons than in the community at large (as we stated above). However, the community corrections population and the community at large are not “the same” in terms of living conditions, resource availability, and mental and physical health profiles.
10. More details on the work of the global community corrections initiative and the country-level experts involved can be found on their website: http://www.globcci.org/
11. Viglione and colleagues (Citation2020) state that 38% of survey respondents reported “at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 among individuals on supervision, while 15% reported at least one confirmed case among officers.” They go on to note that when this occurred, remote supervision was used until the individual tested negative.
12. In our view, a “return-to-normalcy” strategy will be evidence of déjà-vu (or more precisely, we need to coin a new term, dumja-vu: making the same, and often ineffective, policy choices time and time again).
13. For an overview, see Byrne and Pattavina (Citation2013) and Pattavina and Corbett (Citation2019).
14. This public protection goal has been presented by some governments to explain the overrepresentation of nonwhite and foreign-born populations in prisons globally. For a review, see Heard (Citation2020).
15. Here we refer to the use of prison as a sanction and the length of the prison sentence.
16. For more detail, see notes for . These data are available on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime website.
17. Data on the recidivism of releasees from the countries in our review should also be examined to assess impact on public safety. Unfortunately, these data are not available globally. See Byrne et al. (Citation2015) for a review and discussion.
18. These countries are USA, Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia, Kenya, and the UK (England and Wales).
19. Heard (Citation2019) observes that the country-level research on the link between overcrowding and various forms of self-harm, including suicide, is mixed. See, for example, the 24-country comparative review by Fazel et al. (Citation2016).
20. The countries included in are the countries profiled by authors included in this special issue. By including 6 smaller countries in this review we are able to offer an assessment of whether the strategies employed in the large prison systems are similar to the strategies employed in these smaller countries.
21. It has been argued that suspension of visitation has a greater impact on women in prison than men in prison, due to the provider role of women in prison. See Agoff (this volume).
22. In addition to the 6 smaller countries we included in our review of mitigation strategies (see ).
23. It is important to note that particularly in the cases where data were not provided in January through March of 2020 (or closer to the start of the pandemic), makes it more challenging to attribute reductions in prison population totals solely, or predominantly, to COVID-19 back-end mitigation strategies. Policy changes and other forces leading up to 2020 may have also contributed to these prison systems’ population reductions.
24. The effect of COVID-19 on the forced labor population is largely unknown (Ovchinnikov, this volume).
25. Refers to crime rates in 27 different cities in the US, and thus is not encompassing of all cities in all 50 states.
26. The one exception is Europe, which does collect annual data on the region’s community corrections system. See, for example, the START surveys.
27. For an overview of sentencing research, see Byrne (Citation2013), Nagin (Citation2013), M. Tonry (Citation2008), and Tonry (Citation2016).
28. We recognize that critics often conflate risk of recidivism with the stakes involved, if even a single violent crime is committed by a released inmate. Violent criminals (e.g., murderers and individuals who were charged with sexual crime(s)) have the lowest recidivism risk of any release cohort, but it is their conviction offense, not their risk, that leads policymakers to make these groups ineligible for release, even during a pandemic when their age and underlying health problems identify them as “high risk” for infection and death while incarcerated. For many, it is not the probability of a new crime by these high stakes inmates that matters, but rather the possibility. For further discussion on this topic, see Byrne et al. (Citation2008).