International bodies rapidly issued recommendations on measures to prevent the spread of the disease. In South Africa however, it was noted that guidelines from both the Ministry of Justice and the International bodies were not equally implemented in all facilities. The coronavirus spread rapidly in the prison system and 57 prisoners died by November 2020. As described by an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expert on detention, “the difficulty for the detaining authorities was to recognise and manage their healthcare obligations and to prioritise compliance with healthcare standards. The link with the health authorities was crucial for this, but it was often distorted.”
In Brazil for instance, no coordinated measures were established between the Ministry of Justice, the State Prison Administrations and the Federal State in the first months of the crisis. The measures implemented therefore varied from one facility to another. In the State of Rio for instance, the endemic local political crisis jeopardised the coordination between the Health and the Justice authorities. The same kind of shortcomings were observed in several other countries by the ICRC.

Argentina, on the other hand, has strived to coordinate local and national responses to the crisis. The Supreme Court (Corte Suprema de la Nación) issued an Order early in the pandemic. Following international recommendations, it allowed for different prison administration, both Provincial and Federal, to implement the same set of measures.
A similar coordinated response was observed in other countries, with constructive outcomes. In Costa Rica, the Emergency Committee (Comando de Atención de Emergencias), under the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice and Peace, has worked closely with the Ministry of Health since the beginning of the pandemic. They decided jointly on protocols to be put in place in prison and adjusted them to the evolution of the situation. Ireland established an Emergency Response Planning Team (“ERPT”) early on, in mid-February. The ERPT consisted of senior staff with skills and experience in healthcare and infection control. It worked in partnership with the National Public Health Emergency Team and the Irish Red Cross. Civil society organisations commended the open and efficient communication between these bodies, which enabled a very fast policy response and implementation of measures. A similar efficient coordination was also reported in New Zealand.

In several other countries, the authorities’ unpreparedness paved the way for spontaneous responses: cross-learning, bottom-up initiatives by various stakeholders including prison directors, and sometimes unprecedented efforts of cooperation between prison administrations across borders.

Conditions of detention are complex to document, and prison is often described as a black box of which little information emerges. This was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the suspension of visits. External actors were prevented from entering in detention. Independent monitoring bodies, civil society organisations, lawyers and families were alarmed and repeatedly called for access with appropriate preventive measures.

Brazilian and South African civil society organisations harshly criticised the absence of dialogue with public authorities and the administrations’ lack of transparency. Prisoners’ family organisations in Brazil were very concerned about the lack of information about detention conditions and health status of their loved ones.

Independent initiatives by external actors were set up and proved to be particularly essential in countries with insufficient State response. This demonstrated how much a pragmatic collaboration was necessary between State bodies and external actors. For instance, the Irish Red Cross worked closely with the Prison Administration to produce accessible information leaflets. They involved prisoner volunteers in raising awareness with other prisoners about physical distancing gestures and identification of high-risk practices.

The hinderance of monitoring visits, such as the ones carried out by the National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs), was one of the main side effects of restrictive measures. In many countries, the monitoring bodies were not able to carry out their inspections, while their controlling mandate is essential and provides one of the rare inside sources of information.

In addition to the suspension of its visits, the French NPM had to face an exceptional situation: the position as the Head of NPM was left vacant for three months in the midst of the crisis.
In many countries, the NPMs had to adapt their work to be able to keep fulfilling their mission. The local members of the Brazilian NPM were proactive in arranging regular meetings with the public authorities to follow, at a distance, the evolution of the crisis in detention.
Once inspection visits were allowed again, monitoring bodies were able to evaluate the evolution and the impact of COVID-19 in prison. Following the development of the Argentinian NPM’s COVID-19 monitoring plan, the Federal Prisons Inspector resumed its visits and started focusing on prisoners’ mental health. In New Zealand, the Chief Inspector resumed its visits in late April 2020. He noted “general positive interactions between prisoners and staff” and commended the “good shared understanding of the effects of COVID-19 and the importance of taking health and safety precautions”, finding that prisoners had been kept well informed and that facilities had implemented adequate preventive measures.

In general, sanitary conditions and access to healthcare of prisoners are very unsatisfactory. Poor hygiene conditions, widespread overcrowding and underfunded penitentiary health systems are the reality of many countries. Problems with water supplies are frequent and were recently reported in South Africa, France and Brazil.

Overcrowding and physical distancing¶

Overcrowding is a systemic challenge in Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, France and in some prisons in Chile. It poses obvious constraints on the respect of physical distancing measures. In the beginning of the pandemic, the Brazilian government recommended that prison facilities make use of curtains and ground marks to define a two-meter minimum distance. This proved to be somewhat ineffective in the overcrowded communal cells holding dozens of prisoners. In the beginning of 2020, more than 1,600 prisoners were sleeping on mattresses on the floor in French remand prisons. Double-occupancy cells were crowded with up to four people. During the pandemic, prisoners spent the whole day locked up, only leaving at mealtimes and with no access to a daily outdoor walk. The rapid release of prisoners then allowed for a decrease of 12,000 prisoners in the prison population from March to June. This finally made single-occupancy cells a reality in some facilities.
Some countries had better results in the implementation of physical distancing measures. In Norway, with an average prison density of 88%, prison authorities were able to abolish the use of double and multi-occupancy cells in halfway houses, as well as in higher and lower security facilities. In Ireland, meals were served in small groups, in disposable cardboard containers, respecting distancing measures.

Access to healthcare¶

In countries where the access to healthcare in prison is considered poor or even non-existent, the threat of the coronavirus was an additional motive for prisoners’ anxiety. In Argentina, a study from 2019 showed that 31% of prisoners held in the Federal system and 55% of those incarcerated in the Province of Buenos Aires did not have access to care when they were sick. The fight against the spread of COVID-19 was particularly challenging in prisons where the authorities already failed in preventing the spread of other treatable diseases, such as tuberculosis in South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. Some governments decided to compensate the lack of health units with new dedicated areas. In May, the Argentinian President announced the construction of 12 hospital units for prisons in the Province of Buenos Aires and four units in Federal prisons. The units will be set up inside the prisons and will include sections for patients who need to be isolated. In Spain, the Catalonian Department of Justice ordered the construction of a field hospital inside the Quatre Camins prison to threat COVID-19 patients.

Personal protective equipment¶

While international bodies rapidly issued recommendations and instructions on the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), the implementation of this key preventive measure was very uneven. In France, prisoners had no access to sanitising gel due to the ban on alcohol in prisons. Staff were provided with masks by the end of March, although it took a few months for them to be distributed to prisoners. In South Africa, testimonies received by local organisations reported a systematic lack of PPE and of hand sanitiser. Up to 50 prisoners had to share one bar of soap. In many countries, prison staff did not systematically comply with the use of masks. In Ireland, PPE was distributed to staff as of mid-February, and training sessions on the recommended use were organised. Prior to the crisis, the Spanish prison administration had already in stock around 100,000 surgical masks, dating from other previous epidemics. It received at least 40,000 additional masks from the Ministry of Health.

Transfers and movements¶

Transfers and movements proved to be a major factor in spreading the disease. Brazilian prisoners were frequently transferred during the crisis, with no transparency on the motives and no established protocol. In Chile some transfers were done without the correct sanitary protocols nor testing the prisoners. As a result, the virus was spread between facilities. In Costa Rica on the other hand, transfers were reduced to a minimum, based on lessons learnt from the management of a mumps epidemic in 2019. A senior Costa Rican prison officer describes the procedure: “We have set up a system of sub-groups to organise the movement of prisoners. This enabled us to avoid contacts between groups when we had to move them from one wing to another. We were then able to submit each sub-group to a 14-day quarantine and make sure the dormitories were fully disinfected in the meanwhile.”

Screening, testing and quarantine¶

In terms of screening and testing, many countries have favoured the testing of prison staff over that of prisoners. An anthropologist specialising in prison health in West Africa explained: “Testing ministry staff before testing in prisons allowed the virus to circulate in asymptomatic forms. Recent serological approaches revealed that the vast majority of inmates had been exposed to the virus. Massive screening of all prisoners should be carried out systematically upon entry into detention.”
Quarantine and medical isolation measures were widely set up, even in prisons where no dedicated space existed before the pandemic. This was applied to newly arrived prisoners, symptomatic and/or positive prisoners and vulnerable prisoners. Thailand adopted the principle of “No exit for Insiders, no entry for Outsiders”: newly arrived prisoners and those presenting COVID-19 symptoms were placed in quarantine cells for 14 days, prison staff had their body temperature checked before entering prison. In Ireland, between April and the end of June, people over the age of 70 and those with chronic illness were automatically isolated. Many were held in the so-called cocooning cells for periods of up to 30 hours.

Mental health¶

In many cases, these decisions amounted to a disproportionate use of restriction of movement. Monitoring bodies expressed their concern about the harmful impact on prisoners’ mental health. In Ireland, the Prison Inspector reported that many prisoners held in cocooning expressed suicidal and depressive feeling. In Norway, the Ombudsman noted that prisoners placed in quarantine or medical isolation were subjected to an excessive use of measures akin to solitary confinement: that “mental health problems were amplified by the COVID-19 crisis. The anxiety of inmates regarding their situation and that of their families, the extreme measures of restriction and the management of addictions have led to situations of riots in some prisons. The lack of psychological and social support proved to be a major weakness of this crisis.”

Prisons around the world have experienced, with the sanitary crisis, an extraordinary increase of measures that can be qualified as an opening. The high number of prisoners and the impossibility to respect physical distance have led authorities to a pragmatic and extraordinary use of sentence adjustments: early, compassionate and conditional releases, suspensions of sentence, house arrests, electronic surveillance, massive pardons.
In the context of urgency in France, appeals from civil society and coordinated action by the Prison Administration, the Penitentiary Services for Integration and Probation (SPIP) and judiciary authorities have jointly led to the release of thousands of prisoners nearing the end of their sentences. From March to May 2020, the prison population has fallen by nearly 13,500, thanks to releases and fewer incarcerations orders. This decrease, eagerly awaited for decades by civil society organisations, prison staff, and prisoners, became a reality within a few months.
In Brazil, the National Justice Council has issued guidelines favouring sentence adjustments in the light of the COVID-19 crisis. Judges have examined prisoners’ demands on a case-by-case basis. At least 33,000 prisoners were released under house arrest or placed under electronic surveillance. This represented 4.8% of the Brazilian prison population. In Spain, the number of prisoners released between March and June reached 7.4% of the prison population. In South Africa, the government authorised on 8 May 2020 the early release of 19,000 prisoners (12% of the prison population), but by the end of June only 4,000 had been released.

“On the one hand, justice is in ‘slow motion’: suspended hearings, insufficient alternative measures. On the other hand, many interventions are aimed at reducing prison overcrowding: nearly 250,000 people detained have been released.”

— Vincent Ballon, ICRC.¶

In all countries, releases were conditioned by specific sets of criteria regarding the eligible prisoners. At-risk prisoners (elderly people, people suffering from illness) were the priority in Brazil, while in Ireland the releases were focused on prisoners serving the final months of their sentence (six months or less). Chile adopted a combination of criteria, prioritising at-risk prisoners, who had already served a significant part of their sentences in prisons, and excluding those who committed highly serious offences.
The fate of newly released prisoners has raised concern of civil society organisations, lawyers and families. For lack of clarity of public policies, families of prisoners that are under house arrest in Brazil are uncertain to this day whether their loved ones will have to return to prison after the crisis or not. The Argentinian Federal Prisons Inspector prepared a guide for released prisoners and their relatives including information on institutions that could provide help. The release process in Ireland took into consideration factors such as health status and housing opportunities, in coordination with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and the Ireland Health Service (HSE).

Work and activities in prison are often scarce, but they are a key component of prisoners’ everyday life and of rehabilitation process.
Work sometimes represents the only source of income for some prisoners. This is crucial given the everyday needs in detention, even though the wages are significantly lower than the national average. In many parts of the world, prisoners rely on their families to provide goods, medicine or food. In Thailand, those without family support did not have any possibility to maintain their income. Most workshops inside the prisons were closed to avoid internal movements. In France, Brazil and New Zealand certain workshops were nevertheless maintained or created, especially dedicated to the production of PPE. Many prisoners who worked outside the prison walls before the pandemic had to stop their activities given the movement restrictions.
Activities were suspended or completely readapted. In many countries, schooling, training or cultural activities are provided by external actors, among which NGOs, schools and universities. In France, all activities were put to a halt, with exceptions for walking, outdoor sports, and activities organised by the Youth Judicial Protection Services in juvenile correction facilities. Most French prisoners described an “over-confinement”. In Brazil and Thailand, videos were sent by external actors, such as religious organisations, in order to compensate for the absence of in-person activities.
As the internal movements were limited, time outside the cells was greatly reduced. In Norway, prisoners spent more time locked up alone in their cells. In Brazil, they were crammed together in the overcrowded and unsanitary collective cells. In order to facilitate sports and exercise, prison gyms remained opened in Irish prisons, but with a lower capacity and a sanitising procedure before and after use. Elderly prisoners and those presenting underlying health conditions were provided with gloves and face masks when exercising.

The suspension of visits was one of the first closing measures implemented. Family members were not able to see their incarcerated loved ones for at least three months in France, and in some Brazilian States this has been impossible since March 2020. The suspension of family visits was one of the key elements for uprisings and acts of protests in prisons worldwide. Compensatory measures where necessary to mitigate the impact of the absence of visits. In Brazil and Thailand, computers and tablets were provided in some facilities for the first time, allowing videocalls between prisoners and their families. The use of videocalls brought a relief for many families, but its use remained unequal: prisons and families struggled with poor internet connection and access was complex. Many problems were reported such as the short time allocated or the lack of confidentiality.
In France, calls were facilitated by a 50-euros increase of prison telephone credit. While mobile phones are banned in prison in the vast majority of countries, authorities in Argentina and Chile authorised its use, in the Province of Buenos Aires and in all Chilean prisons, to ensure prisoners’ rights to communicate with the outside world during the pandemic. In some countries, visitation also represented an opportunity for families to bring parcels with food and goods to their imprisoned relatives. The quality of food is often poor in Brazilian and Argentinian prisons and the provision of hygiene products is insufficient, thus making prisoners rely on their family members. During the pandemic, sending parcels became more complicated and expensive. Where resumed, family visits had to be adapted to new sanitary protocols. Measures and equipment varied between countries and facilities, but mainly consisted of temperature checks, disinfection of visitation rooms, separated boxes with plexiglass screens and compulsory masks. Some facilities used outdoor or bigger spaces for visitation. Even when authorised, families were not always able to visit due to moving restrictions sometimes applied outside.