South Korea’s Responses regarding Mitigating the COVID-19 Crisis behind Bars

ABSTRACT

As one of the earliest countries to identify cases of COVID-19 infection, South Korea is often considered a success story in responding to the global pandemic. This article examines South Korea’s responses in terms of its incarcerated population during the crisis, provides a snapshot of how the coronavirus has impacted prisons, and outlines the mitigation strategies used to create COVID-19-safe spaces in the country. With correction officers being identified as some of the earliest COVID-19 cases in the country, South Korea has striven to manage the coronavirus in correctional facilities as part of the ecosystem of the entire country. This paper discusses South Korea’s unique strategy, which focuses less on the size of the prison population and more on treating correction officers and prisoners, who also need to be protected from the virus. In particular, this paper analyzes the multifaceted strategies adopted by South Korea to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus within the criminal justice system, and specifically to protect inmates and correction officers from infection. Strategies centered on public health and human rights were implemented, combined with in-prison strategies, modestly downsizing the prison population and/or maintaining the status quo during the pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Correctional facilities
• criminal justice system
• COVID-19
• mitigation strategy
• South Korea
• Pandemic
• Alternatives to incarceration
• Early release mechanisms
• Prison reform

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Confirmed cases associated with the church are 5,175 cases as of April 2020 (Park, 2020).

2. Typically, teenagers are held in juvenile detention centers, but for exceptions, some older inmates are also assigned to be in the juvenile facilities in South Korea.

3. South Korea uses an offender classification of four classes: Class 1, 2, 3, 4 inmates are referred to as S1, S2, S3, and S4. The higher number of a class indicates a severity of criminal offenses.