Having released just 275 prisoners out of a population of around 80,000 under the two different Covid-19 early release schemes for England and Wales, on 19 August the government announced that the scheme would be ‘paused’ from the end of the month. Scotland has also terminated its scheme, having released 348 prisoners from a total prison population approximately a tenth the size of that of England and Wales.
Meanwhile, whatever easing and re-imposition of ‘lockdown’ measures outside takes place, the real lockdown inside prison continues. In the summer issue of the Prison Officers Association (POA) magazine Gatelodge, POA chair Mark Fairhurst makes it clear that the union is more than happy with the renewed control it has gained over prisoners and prison regimes. Fairhurst writes that, despite the worries of ‘the so called prison “experts” who so often take the form of reform groups or psychologists who have never walked in our shoes … that human rights had been breached and we were implementing draconian unnecessary measures [and that] mental health would deteriorate and self-harm would significantly rise … we now see a controlled, well ordered, less violent and more stable prison estate despite the concerns of the critical few’.
