Chile is a decentralised, unitary state. The institution in charge of the Prison System in Chile is the Gendarmería. Established in 1911 under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice, it manages the Chilean prisons (76 public and 8 private) and aims to contribute to the social reintegration of people serving sentences. More than a third of the prison population are pre-trial detainees and prisoners on remand (34.7%), and it has the second-highest female prison population rate of the region (7% of the total). Human Rights Institutions have reported poor living conditions and systematic deficiencies in access to health services for prisoners . It is also the responsibility of the Gendarmería to facilitate health access to inmates, through its Health Department. Its objective is to manage and coordinate the resources destined to grant health benefits to prisoners and prison staff. This department is in charge of prison infirmaries and hospitals, referring prisoners to external public health facilities if required, and hiring health personnel to work within the prisons. However, this endowment is said to be scarce, with few medical specialties and low-quality care.

The Prison healthcare system depends on the Gendarmería, and its Health Department. The latter is not formally connected to the public health system, but some coordination enables prisoners to access public healthcare when the penitentiary healthcare is overwhelmed.
When the first COVID-19 case was identified in the country, a procedure for prison facilities was developed. On 23 March 2020, the Gendarmería presented the “Comprehensive Action Plan for COVID-19 Contingency”, which adopted guidelines to increase the operational security of the service and to improve access to healthcare, supply and logistics. It organised inter-institutional coordination and access to information, with a focus on the protection of officials and people deprived of liberty.

In early March 2020, the Ministers of Health and Justice visited some prisons to inform about the prevention measures. A H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign was launched for prisoners and prison officers, so as to reduce the risk of the comorbidity.

The same week, the penitentiary institution decided to restrict visits, reducing the days, number of people allowed entrance, and prohibiting pregnant women and the elderly to visit. As the contagion rapidly spread in prisons, all visits were suspended. The facilities started to systematically sanitise prisons and institutional transfer vehicles before and after use.
The penitentiary service set up spaces within prisons to receive possibly infected persons or people having been in contact with them. In all facilities, a 14-day preventive isolation was imposed on all those entering from abroad by court order or from another facility. According to the report of the Judicial Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court, 2,667 places were set up nationwide for this purpose. A contingency plan was developed in case that all isolation places be occupied and that trained personnel be overwhelmed: the dependencies of the Concepción Penal Complex was to be adapted to function as an isolation hospital for 1,600 people. The plan also projected the transfer of prisoners from other regions, the isolation of officials and the creation of a fully equipped medical area, including a central food supply and handling personnel.

The prison administration reported daily on the number of cases, counting prisoners, prison staff, and number of people vaccinated against influenza. The most recent figures show that 2,156 prisoners and 1,763 prison officers have been infected, and that 18 prisoners and 2 prison officers died from COVID-19.
The first confirmed case was a prison officer on 23 March 2020, followed by a prisoner on 29 March in the Puente Alto Prison in Santiago, where the contagion spread rapidly, with 68 prisoners and 81 prison officers testing positive by April.
In June 2020, the first COVID-19 death in prison was announced : a 75-year-old prisoner who had been in prison since 2013 in the country’s largest and most crowded prison, CP Santiago Sur (ex Penitenciaria).
Several other COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons were noted. The CP Puente Alto outbreak was followed by clusters in Valdivia prison, Chillán prison and in the educational and work prison in Valparaíso. According to human rights insitutions, the outbreak in Valdivia was due to a negligent transfer of prisoners from Santiago, who had not been tested.

Chile’s average penitentiary overcrowding rate is not very high. Several facilities however present serious overcrowding contexts and poor sanitary conditions. To reduce the prison population and limit health risks that are aggravated in crowded cells, the Ministry of Justice and the Public Criminal Defence Office took measures to limit the entry of new prisoners and promote early release.
On 25 March 2020, the Ministry of Justice presented a bill to the National Congress that aimed to pardon people identified as high-risk groups in prisons (including the elderly, pregnant women, children and adolescents, and people with chronic diseases). The project was approved on 16 April after discussions and modifications. It allowed prison sentences to be commuted to house arrest for those aged 75 years or more, for men between 60 and 75 and women between 55 and 75, for pregnant women or mothers with a child under two residing with them, and for people serving overnight detention. It also allowed the temporary modification of the custodial sentence of convicted people who benefited from the controlled exit permit. The bill excluded people convicted for serious crimes, such as domestic violence, torture, rape, parricide, femicide, homicide, or crimes related to genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. In total, 1,610 people were released.[^numb]
On the other hand, the Public Criminal Defence Office (DPP) promoted “massive defence actions to replace the preventive detention of accused persons belonging to groups with a higher health risk”.¹ Between April and May 2020, the DPP called all its professionals to request as much as possible the revocation of precautionary measures of deprivation of liberty. As a result:

• By April 2020, the Parole Commissions granted 1,560 paroles of the 3,250 prisoners nominated by DPP, a 48% success in the first instance. Later, 97 legal protections (amparos) were accepted, adding to a total figure of 1,657.
• By May 2020, defence actions were deployed for 8,199 people, managing to revoke the precautionary measure for 2,489 of them. The combined implementation of all measures decongested prisons by 9%, according to the Gendarmería data.

Activities that required prisoners to leave the prisons or required the entering of external actors were for the most postponed, reduced, or cancelled. The social rehabilitation programs continued with reduced amplitude and group sessions were suspended. The drug programs remained operational throughout the crisis. In-person school classes were suspended, while online courses and educational guides were made available to prisoners.[^cla] Some work activities were suspended, while over 2,000 masks were made by prisoners in workshops. [^cla]: Information provided by the Gendarmería’s Council of civil society.

All visits in prisons were suspended since March 2020, in many cases, due to the demand of prisoners to protect themselves and their families. As an alternative and to maintain contact with families and courts, new technologies were implemented for virtual visits. The Gendarmería and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights suspended all sanctions for use of cell phones in prisons, allowing access as a regulated and exceptional measure. The equipment was provided by families or by the Ministry of Justice, through a “humanitarian call” for the donation of telephone chip cards. By July 2020, there were 2,120 authorized cell phones, 249 working computers, 470 public phones and 256 additional cell phones provided by the government.¹ Prisoners were allowed one telephone per person, to be used during specific hours and only to maintain communication with registered loved ones or lawyers. These mobile phones were controlled by the administration and regulated through a protocol of use and operation.
Given the long suspension of in-person visits and the increasing flexibility of sanitary measures in the country, several prisoners demanded to resume their right to in-person visits. By December 2020, a strict visits protocol was developed by the Penitentiary Institution. Some prisons have started to implement the protocol.

Several riots and acts of protests were reported in Chilean prisons. The first big riot was at CP Puente Alto (in Santiago), where the first outbreak was observed and which has 80% of all infected prisoners. The riot was led by 400 prisoners from Tower 1, incarcerated for “highly complex crimes”. The protesters set fire to mattresses, denouncing the management of the pandemic by the authorities, the lack of testing and their limited access to release measures, since as “high risk” prisoners they were eligible to governmental pardon. The Gendarmería and firefighters intervened. No one was injured.
Two other riots took place in C.C.P. Colina I (Santiago). According to the prison authorities, one of the riots started after a search procedure by prison staff following prisoner fights inside tower 4A. 400 inmates were involved, and 36 prisoners and 12 staff were injured, one of them seriously. The second riot caused serious damage and left 38 prisoners and 32 staff injured. Following the riots, Gendarmería transferred 126 prisoners to other prisons and regions.
Prisoners in Santiago 1 protested against the poor hygiene conditions. Some tried to escape with the help of families and friends on the outside, without success. The riot ended with 25 injured prisoners and 12 staff. Other riots and escape attempts have been reported in private prisons in Rancagua and Valdivia, among others.
A protest was organised by the Gendarmería officials in Calama, who demanded more preventive measures to avoid new infections in prison. Videos and posters of protest and discontent have been disseminated by prisoners. They demanded better prison conditions, to be eligible in the pardon bill, to be heard in decisions allowing or suspending visits and in decisions regarding the management of the pandemic. Prisoners argued repeatedly that their lives and human rights must be seen as significant as any human being.

Various national and international organisations expressed concern about the state of prisons in Chile, considering prisoners as a particularly vulnerable group due to the nature of the restrictions, the overcrowding and the poor sanitary conditions.
The Judicial Prosecutor of the Supreme Court recommended to reduce prison population with early, provisional, or temporary release schemes for those considered “safe”, taking into account the Tokyo Rules (UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures). Its report on the Gendarmería‘s actions concluded that it was not able to prevent a crisis inside the prisons due to the structurally precarious conditions. Despite positive initiatives, the measures had not been implemented in a uniform manner.
Human rights organisations have supervised and promoted prisoners’ health rights, among which the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) and the Chilean Medical Association (COLMED). They have visited prisons and issued recommendations to the penitentiary authorities.

In the visit report of CP Puente Alto in April 2020, clear-cut conclusions argued that there was an urgent need to improve the infrastructure, the coordination between prison and local authorities, the organisation and implementation of sanitary measures during the delivery of parcels, and the family’s acces to the premises to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The report also stated the urgent need for more training, delivery and compulsory use of personal protection elements amongst prison and health officials. Many of these recommendations have been considered by the Gendarmería, although much remains to be done.