On 27 May, Lord Keen of Elie, the government’s justice spokesman in the House of Lords, responded to written questions on prisoner releases as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, confirming that, as of 15 May, a total of 92 prisoners had been released in England and Wales under three different release schemes. On 4 April the government had announced that in response to the pandemic it was bringing in an early release scheme for low-risk prisoners nearing the end of their sentences; the media reported this extensively with headlines telling us that up to 4,000 people would soon be released. However, the reality has been quite different. NICKI JAMESON reports.
Britain has one of the highest per capita prison populations in Europe and, at the start of 2020, prior to the pandemic, there were around 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales, and just over 8,000 in Scotland. Five months later, there are approximately 80,000 prisoners in England and Wales, and around 7,000 in Scotland. However, these drops are largely not because of early releases, but mainly due to far fewer court hearings taking place, meaning that fewer people are sentenced to imprisonment.
Of the 92 prisoners released on licence due to the pandemic, 66 were freed under the early release provisions announced on 4 April, with the remainder – 21 women who were either pregnant or had small babies with them in custody, and five people with serious health conditions – released on temporary licence on compassionate grounds under separate provisions. The parameters for the operation of both schemes remained cloaked in secrecy until 24 April, and were only then made public after threats of litigation from the Prisoners’ Advice Service and other legal and prison charities. This led to confusion as to who was and wasn’t eligible, and terrible distress for prisoners and their families, especially those with conditions such as sickle cell anaemia, thalassaemia, lupus or chronic pulmonary disease.
Squalid and dangerous conditions
Conditions inside many prisons, especially the older ones, holding medium security prisoners, are squalid and dangerous. As the Chief Inspector of Prisons’ annual report in July 2019 described: ‘With their high through-put of prisoners, their often worn-out fabric, their vulnerable populations and their levels of violence and illicit drugs use, they were this year the prisons that, as in previous years, caused us most concern. Staff shortages had been so acute that risks to both prisoners and staff were often severe, and levels of all types of violence had soared. Meanwhile, the appalling impact of illicit drugs, particularly new psychoactive substances (NPS) had been underestimated and … many prisons were still suffering from the debt, bullying and violence they generated.’
It was into this already toxic environment that the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in early 2020. According to Ministry of Justice figures, as of 19 May, 542 members of staff across 72 English and Welsh prisons, and 422 prisoners across 74 prisons had tested positive for coronavirus. In addition, 23 members of staff employed by the private companies which provide the Prisoner Escort and Custody Service were confirmed as having the virus. The first death was announced on 26 March; by 14 May, 21 prisoners had died from the virus in England and Wales, and by 15 May six had died in Scotland.
Rather than embark on a significant release programme, the government has instead opted to address some of the issues of shielding and separation of prisoners by creating 500 additional prison places, using prefabricated portacabin cells, so that prisoners who had been sharing cells could be housed separately. This creates the prospect of an ‘M25 effect’, in which these 500 spaces will not be decommissioned after the pandemic is over, but simply used to bump the prison population up still further. This has happened previously when temporary accommodation has been added to ease overcrowding.
Meanwhile, inside many prisons, lockdown conditions are extreme. When people outside prison refer to the hardships of ‘lockdown’, little of what they are experiencing compares to actually being locked down in a prison, confined to your cell for 23 and a half hours a day. All social and legal visits have been cancelled; all prison courses have stopped; prison work other than essential cleaning has been put on hold; there is no access to the library or gym, and outside exercise in most prisons has been cut to half an hour a day, with some not even providing that, despite this being unlawful. Prison healthcare and mental health support, which are poor at the best of times, have been reduced to the barest minimum. In essence, the majority of prisoners are simply banged up for very nearly the whole of the day, every day. On 28 May The Guardian reported that there had been 16 prison suicides since lockdown conditions were introduced on 23 March.
In some prisons, the regime is even more severe: a report of a recent snap visit by the Prisons Inspectorate to Wandsworth prison published on 19 May describes how prisoners exhibiting possible virus symptoms were confined to their cells continuously for 14 days, not even allowed out to take a shower. The prison claimed that this was done with the approval of Public Health England.
On top of all these officially sanctioned restrictions, some over-zealous or simply sadistic members of prison staff are adding their own by withdrawing the half hour’s exercise or access to a shower as a punishment for any dissent or bad behaviour.
Human rights
Britain’s response is in stark contrast to that of some other countries, including ones which the British government vilifies for their records on human rights, whether accurately or purely for political reasons.
- In Iran, up to 100,000 prisoners have been released on temporary licence, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Iranian-British woman whose detention has been the focus of a great deal of sympathetic coverage in the British press.
- In Turkey, where the barbaric and murderous treatment of political prisoners has resulted in the recent horrific deaths of three members of the band Grup Yorum, although the government has flatly refused to consider the temporary or permanent release of any of the 90,000 people imprisoned on political grounds, it has nonetheless moved to free up to 60,000 non-political prisoners in response to the pandemic.
- In socialist Cuba, as of 1 May, 421 remand prisoners had been released on bail and 6,158 convicted prisoners had been released early from their sentences.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 276 June/July 2020
