Ask an Expert: Campaigning for Prisoners’ rights during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Irish Penal Reform Trust

 

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, prisons pose a particularly challenging environment in which to prevent the spread of disease. Next in our Ask an Expert series, PRILA asks Fíona Ní Chinnéide, Executive Director of Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) about IPRT’s work, with a specific focus on advocating for prisoners’ rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. Established in 1994, IPRT is a leading NGO in Ireland dedicated to advancing the rights of people in prison and penal reform. Given the unique challenges that COVID-19 poses for prisons, we appreciate the insight and reflections Fíona provides here.

The PRILA Project (Prisons: the Rule of Law, Accountability, and Rights), located at Trinity College Dublin under the leadership of Prof Mary Rogan, aims to improve policy and practice in the governance of Europe’s prisons.

 

Questions:

1. Ireland has been notably successful in managing COVID-19, with no cases reported thus far amongst people in prison. What do you think is unique or particularly significant to the approach taken by the Irish Prison Service to combat the threat of COVID-19?

 

Early action on reducing prison crowding was one of the most significant preventative actions taken in Ireland, in stark contrast with England and Wales in particular. From the moment the pandemic was declared, the UN, Council of Europe, WHO and others were insistent that the release of prisoners was essential to prevent COVID-19 from “rampaging” through crowded prisons, given the difficulties of adhering to public health guidelines, coupled with the compromised health that generally characterises prison populations. Ireland responded by releasing over 10% of the prison population from mid-March to mid-April 2020, and numbers have continued to fall slowly. There were 3,672 people in prison on Friday 19th June 2020; this is the lowest figure since 2017.

 

Importantly, people weren’t simply let out: prison service staff and community-based organisations worked closely to ensure planned structured releases from prison, and prevent release into homelessness. There have reportedly been very few recalls to prison, which underscores just what can be achieved by joined-up collaborative working – something that IPRT, the Interagency Group for a Fairer and Safer Ireland, the Penal Policy Review Group and others had called for over many, many years.

 

Another key element has been good communications between prison staff and prisoners. The Irish Red Cross prisoner volunteer programme, in particular, has played a critical role through the peer-to-peer sharing of information about COVID-19, helping to foster an environment of trust and co-operation within the prisons. This is essential as COVID-19 restrictions have resulted in particularly harsh prison conditions. The success of keeping COVID-19 out of prisons has not been without impact on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of people in prison.

2. Can you share with us some thoughts on how COVID-19-related restrictions have impacted families?

 

Families are often described as the “hidden victims” of imprisonment, and the burden of having a family member in prison is significant at all times. In response to COVID-19 risks, children have not been allowed visit prisons since mid-March, and all in-person visits have been suspended since the end of March. This means that around 6,000 children in Ireland have not hugged their parent in prison in almost four months. It has been a deeply worrying time for families concerned about the health of their loved one in prison, and for people in prison feeling helpless concern for their families outside. At the same time, for some families, it has been experienced as a break from having to travel sometimes long distances at significant financial expense for what can be a short and unsatisfactory visit with their loved one.

 

Innovations introduced by the Irish Prison Service include the ability to lodge money electronically into the family member’s prison account and video calls. However, it is critical that video visits are retained as an option and not as a replacement for in-person visits when life returns to ‘normal’ in future.

 

3. IPRT has been active in calling on the government to take measures to reduce the prison population, both before and in response to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. What steps is IPRT taking to ensure the IPS continues these practices after the threat of COVID-19 has subsided?

 

Although IPRT has so far resisted saying “I told you so” (externally, at least!) it remains the case that if the actions and recommendations IPRT had made over many years had been implemented previously, the prison system would have been starting from a different place in March 2020 when the pandemic was declared. Prisons would have been operating within capacity, video calls would already have been available, there would have been a seamless transition to e-learning when the closure of prison schools was announced, and more. We welcome that so many positive reforms have been achieved in such a short time; however, it should not have taken a global pandemic for this to happen – the evidence was already there to support these reforms. A key challenge for IPRT now is to ensure that we don’t return to “business as usual” as the threat of COVID 19 recedes, and to ensure that good practices are retained.

 

An objective for IPRT this year is to capture the positive reforms that have been implemented, document how these reforms were achieved, outline and measure the longer-term benefits of the reforms to wider community and society, and then advocate, engage and raise awareness across all stakeholders – from policy-makers to legal professions, from legislators to the wider general public. The centrepiece of this work will be the 2020 edition of our annual Progress in the Penal System report.

4. What are the challenges ahead for the prison service? And, are there any lessons learned from the response to COVID-19 that may shape Irish Prisons going forward?

 

Restrictions that were introduced in line with public health guidance on residential settings should now be eased in line with the same guidance, in order to reduce the significant negative impact of the measures on men and women in prison. However, managing the expectations of people in prison and their families on the outside as Ireland slowly re-opens will be challenging – particularly if there is any resurgence of the virus in the community.

 

Some specific challenges that lie ahead for the Irish Prison Service include:

1. Responding to the long-term mental health impacts of what has been de facto solitary confinement for a large cohort of the prison population.
2. Maintaining social distancing while operating above the prison capacity levels that would allow for single-cell occupancy of cells.
3. Preventing release into homelessness in the longer term.

 

Lessons from COVID 19 include:

 

1.     The importance of external monitoring and oversight of prisons. The absence of published inspection reports on prisons means that we have little insight on current prison conditions and the extent to which the human rights of people in prison have been respected during the pandemic. This is a concern.

 

2.     The importance of good communication. In particular, the role that the Irish Red Cross Prisoner Volunteer Programme played in peer-to-peer communication and working alongside prison staff has been key to the success of keeping COVID-19 out of prisons in Ireland. Empowering and giving agency to prisoners was essential to this success, and forms a good basis for increased opportunities for prisoner groups in future.

 

3.     The recognition of the continuum between prison health and public health, and the inclusion of the Irish Prison Service Executive Clinical Lead in the NPHET Vulnerable Persons Subgroup has played an important role in recognising that prisoners are part of the wider community, and public health can learn from prison health in this instance.            

 

Thank you to Fíona Ní Chinnéide, Executive Director of IPRT for sharing her insights and experience of campaigning for prisoners’ rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. To read the unabridged version of this blog post, please visit the PRILA website.

Suggested citation: 'Ask an Expert: Campaigning for Prisoners’ rights during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Irish Penal Reform Trust' COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory Blog (30 June 2020) http://tcdlaw.blogspot.com/2020/06/ask-expert-campaigning-for-prisoners.html

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