Coronavirus: Prisons (England and Wales)

By Jacqueline Beard

In March 2020 the Justice Secretary told the Justice Committee that the pressure on prisons in England and Wales due to coronavirus was acute.“a potential hotbed for viral transmission”, stating that “they are overcrowded, understaffed and often dirty”.2 The Head of the Prison Governors Association told the Guardian: 1 The Chair of the Justice Committee described prisons as a combination of prison overcrowding, prisoner lockdown and staff shortages as a result of prison workers needing to isolate themselves meant that the system was facing unprecedented pressure.3 The physical health of the prison population, across a broad range of conditions, is much poorer than that of the general population.4 The proportion of prisoners aged over 50 increased from 7% in 2002 to 16% in March 2019.5 Living conditions across much of the prison estate are poor. As at February 2020, 60% (70) of prison establishments were crowded.6 These 70 prisons accommodated around 60,000 prisoners or 71% of the total prison population. On 27 April 2020 the Justice Secretary said that the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths in prisons were lower than had been originally predicted and that “while we are not out of woods”, prisons were coping and dealing well with the threat of covid-19. 7  A press release from the Ministry of Justice on the 28 April 2020 said that “jails are successfully limiting deaths and the transmission of the virus within the estate”.8 As of 12 May, 404 cases had been confirmed amongst prisoners. 21 prisoners and 7 members of prison staff had died.9  Public Health England (PHE) reported on 24 April 2020 that data it had collected “suggests that the ‘explosive outbreaks’ of COVID19 which were feared at the beginning of the pandemic wave are not being seen. Instead, there is evidence of containment of outbreak”.10 PHE’s report stated that because access to testing for prisoners has been limited and variable, the number of confirmed cases reported “does not represent the true burden of infection in the prison system”. It states that in addition to the 304 laboratory-confirmed cases in prisoners in England and Wales (at the time the report was written) data showed there had been also over 1,783 possible/probable cases. 

London, House of Commons Library. 2020. 10pg