The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on prison population in Europe
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text
adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of
the Assembly, on 25 November 2022 (see Doc. 15652, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human
Rights, rapporteur: Mr Givi Mikanadze).See also Recommendation 2242 (2022).
1. The Parliamentary Assembly recalls
its work carried out in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its concerns
about the impact of restrictive measures on the human rights and
fundamental freedoms of persons deprived of their liberty, including
its
Resolution 2329 (2020) “Lessons
for the future from an effective and rights-based response to the
Covid-19 pandemic”,
Resolution
2338 (2020) “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on human
rights and the rule of law” and
Resolution 2424 (2022) “Beating
Covid-19 with public health measures”. Notably, in
Resolution 2338 (2020),
the Assembly called on member States to “ensure that the health
and safety of persons deprived of their liberty are protected and
they are not subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
taking full account of the expert guidance given by bodies such
as the CPT [European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment]”.
2. The Assembly notes that during the Covid-19 pandemic Council
of Europe member States imposed various preventive health measures
as well as measures restricting the rights, freedoms and well-being
of prisoners, and sometimes prison staff, in order to control the
spread of the pandemic within the prison population.
3. Some countries took active steps to reduce the number of prisoners,
given the clear links between prison overcrowding and the spread
of coronavirus in prisons. Some countries prioritised vaccination
for prisoners and prison staff, given the risks of contamination
in a closed environment.
4. Social distancing measures, while often necessary, arguably
had the greatest impact on the well-being of prisoners. These included
restrictions on contact with the outside world as well as restricting
contact and activities within prisons. The necessity and justification
of these measures was not always clearly communicated to prisoners.
Some compensatory measures were put in place, such as improved opportunities for
telecommunication in order to contact family, but the impact on
the well-being of prisoners was still significant, with a likely
corresponding increase in self-harm and suicide attempts.
5. The Assembly recalls that, in accordance with the European
Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5, “the Convention”), States
Parties to the Convention have a positive obligation to take appropriate
measures to protect the human rights of those within their jurisdiction,
especially under Article 2 of the Convention, enshrining the right
to life, and Article 8, enshrining the right to respect for private
life. These positive obligations are particularly pronounced for
those in detention facilities who are reliant upon State action
to secure their well-being.
6. In relation to the restrictions introduced as a result of
the Covid-19 pandemic, the Assembly recalls that protecting public
health may constitute a legitimate purpose for justifying restrictions
on the rights to respect for private life (Article 8) and freedom
of assembly and association (Article 11), provided such restrictions
are “prescribed by law”, “necessary in a democratic society” and
proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.
7. However, the Assembly notes that the prohibition on torture
or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 3) is absolute.
Therefore, any measures that cross this threshold cannot be justified.
The Assembly similarly notes the statements as well as the informative
and authoritative reports of the CPT in relation to standards in
places of detention, and in particular as concerns the challenges
posed by Covid-19 in detention facilities.
8. The Assembly notes that sanitary conditions in prisons were
key to preventing the spread of Covid-19 into, and within, prisons.
Prison health should be an integral part of public health and adequate
health treatment must be available in all places of detention. Given
the specific risks for the spread of disease for those within closed
environments such as prisons, and the responsibility of the State
towards detainees, prison health must be given the priority that
it deserves. In particular, vaccines and boosters should be offered
to prisoners and prison staff – with appropriate information campaigns
– so that prisoners are fully informed of medical information relating
to the vaccines.
9. The Assembly notes that problems of overcrowding in certain
prisons existed before the pandemic, as noted by the CPT in a number
of reports as well as by the European Court of Human Rights in several judgments.
Such overcrowded conditions meant that it was difficult to adequately
separate people infected with Covid-19 from the rest of the prison
population in order to stop the uncontrolled spread of the virus.
As a result, efforts to reduce the prison population have been seen
as one of the most effective and sustainable measures for preventing
and controlling Covid-19 in prisons by providing space for physical
distancing between prisoners. The Council of Europe’s Annual Penal
Statistics project concluded, among other things, that because of
Covid-19, the prison population in Europe was significantly reduced
between January 2020 and 2021. This decrease was mainly attributed
to: the reduction in certain types of crimes in the context of the
restrictions on movement during the pandemic; the slowing down of
judicial systems; and the release schemes used in some countries to
prevent or reduce the spread of the pandemic.
10. Discussions around the importance of alternatives to detention
in helping to reduce the risks of prison overcrowding were already
commonplace before the pandemic. The increased risks of Covid-19
due to prison overcrowding provided States with an opportunity to
put in place alternatives to detention, such as home detention or
community service orders. Some States decreased the use and length
of pretrial detention, while others released, or temporarily released,
prisoners considered to present a low level of risk to the public.
Other States (for example Georgia and Portugal) adopted amnesty
laws. As Europe emerges from the pandemic, useful lessons can be
drawn from this experience so as to continue to use alternatives
to detention to reduce the prison population to a minimum and to
help ease the risk of overcrowding within prisons.
11. The Assembly is also aware that different conditions and models
exist within prisons in Council of Europe member States, necessitating
a Covid-19 response that best responds to the risks presented in
that specific setting. Similarly, the design of some prison structures
facilitates efforts to separate prisoners from intermingling, which
can help to contain the spread of the virus within a facility. It
is therefore important to ensure that the practices adopted in a
given prison are adequately adapted to the challenges present in
those facilities, to best protect both prisoners and prison staff
while also enabling prisoners to benefit from social and other activities
to the maximum extent possible in the circumstances.
12. The Assembly notes that restrictions on visits from friends
and family or even lawyers, as well as restrictions on social engagement
and activities within the prison setting, can have a profound effect
on a prisoner’s well-being. Such situations risk leading to an increase
in self-harm and suicide attempts. States and prison authorities
should find creative options to fill the void created by such restrictions.
The Assembly therefore welcomes the fact that in many prisons visiting
restrictions were accompanied by significant improvements in telecommunication
to enable prisoners to contact family members through phone and
video calls. Phone and video calls should not be seen as an adequate
long-term alternative to meaningful in-person visits and contact
with family, but they can be a useful and important addition, enabling
prisoners to retain important family and community links to better
enable their successful reintegration into the community at the end
of their prison sentence.
13. The Assembly equally recognises the significant impact that
the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures taken to prevent the spread
of Covid-19 within prison facilities has had on prison staff. In
order to limit the spread of Covid-19, prison staff were sometimes
required to spend lengthy periods of time living in the prison environment
and to undergo significant quarantine periods in order to prevent
the virus being introduced from exposure in the outside community.
Such measures had a significant impact on the quality of life, especially the
family life, of staff and on their health and morale, with consequent
repercussions for all those in a prison environment.
14. In the Assembly’s view, there have been some useful practices
and experiences across member States in managing disease outbreaks
within a closed prison environment and in facilitating alternatives
to detention. Nevertheless, overcrowding and other factors continue
to pose a risk to the containment of the virus. In imposing restrictions
on prisoners’ freedoms, the right balance must be struck between
preventing the uncontrolled spread of the virus and limiting prisoners’
freedoms only to the extent necessary. The pandemic is not yet over.
Best practices should therefore be shared and implemented to prevent
the spread of Covid-19 and other similar communicable diseases,
while ensuring that restrictions are only imposed to the extent
and for the duration strictly necessary.
15. The Assembly calls on Council of Europe member States to:
15.1 develop emergency response plans
for each country and for each prison, tailored to the particular specificity
and needs of each place of detention;
15.2 take all reasonable steps to ultimately eliminate overcrowding
in prisons, in particular with regard to the options that States
have deployed during the Covid-19 pandemic, including establishing
systems for alternatives to detention and putting in place systems
to allow for early release or release for the most vulnerable prisoners;
15.3 ensure that robust healthcare provision, including mental
healthcare provision, is available to all those in detention facilities;
15.4 strengthen the epidemiological oversight for prisons (and
all detention facilities) in close collaboration with the public
health agencies, including by ensuring that adequate medical screening processes
are in place in detention facilities;
15.5 ensure that quarantine or isolation is only used where
strictly necessary and that all prisoners in quarantine or otherwise
in isolation are offered access to outdoor exercise as well as meaningful
human contact, including phone calls;
15.6 ensure that prisoners and prison staff are offered vaccinations
and boosters, while ensuring appropriate prioritisation, having
regard to the particular risks posed to those in detention and to vulnerable
prisoners;
15.7 ensure that special measures are taken to identify those
at higher risk of catching or becoming seriously ill from Covid-19
and then to take steps to protect vulnerable groups within the prison population,
for example through temporary release, specific medical care or
shielding from the wider prison population;
15.8 ensure that any restrictions on the rights and freedoms
usually available to prisoners are only introduced to the extent
and duration necessary and interfere as little as possible with
their overall well-being;
15.9 in particular, ensure that access to prisons by those
providing legal services or by monitoring bodies is not restricted
– in closed environments such as prisons, external monitoring is
essential to ensure that prisoners’ rights are respected;
15.10 reflect on alternative means for compensating prisoners
for restrictions that may be necessary due to the Covid-19 crisis,
such as through improving access to telecommunication to maintain
family relationships;
15.11 ensure that improvements in access to telecommunication
for contact with family are maintained after the pandemic as a useful
means of enabling more successful rehabilitation at the end of a
prison sentence, while bearing in mind that such contact should
not replace meaningful face-to-face contact;
15.12 ensure that when physical access to a court is restricted
on public health grounds, online hearings are available (where appropriate),
along with the necessary means of telecommunication to support such
online hearings, to ensure that prisoners have adequate and timely
access to a court and to court hearings;
15.13 ensure good communication and co-ordination between the
various agencies and bodies responsible for responding to a crisis
affecting the prison population, such as health ministries, health advisers,
justice ministries, prison authorities and probation authorities;
15.14 undertake information and communication campaigns to ensure
that prison staff receive all the relevant information and training
on the best practices for identifying and stopping the spread of
Covid-19;
15.15 carry out information and communication campaigns to inform
prisoners about the risks of Covid-19 and other communicable diseases
and the best practice for combating such risks, and to provide detainees
with useful information about vaccination options;
15.16 ensure that adequate data are maintained on the prison
and probation populations, to support penal and criminological research
into how best to reduce recidivism and to encourage the successful reintegration
of offenders into the community;
15.17 establish procedures that take full account of the dangers
and risks faced by prison staff in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic
as well as of the impact on their welfare caused by the various measures
introduced, such as additional quarantine requirements, and put
in place adequate measures to compensate prison staff for such impacts,
including leave, financial compensation, rest and respite, and rehabilitation
activities such as psychological support;
15.18 take all necessary steps to implement, as swiftly as possible,
the recommendations of the CPT in this area, including the 10 principles
set out in its “Statement of principles relating to the treatment
of persons deprived of their liberty in the context of the coronavirus
disease (Covid-19) pandemic”;
15.19 ensure that the rising costs of living in Europe, including
energy and food prices, do not disproportionally affect living conditions
in prisons.
