Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), in collaboration with the Penal Reform International (PRI), released Global Prison Trends 2020 report via a webinar online seminar.
High-level representatives of international organisations working in judicial and human-right fields joined this forum to discuss what happened in prisons across the world in the past year and recommend useful policies, as they pushed for the easing of prison overcrowding via non-custodial measures and the improvement of sanitary conditions at correctional facilities during COVID-19 crisis.
Challenges to prison management in 2020 revolve around how to protect inmates’ human rights during a public-health crisis and how to deal with the pandemic.
The webinar started with welcoming remarks by Ilze Brands Kehris, UN assistant secretary-general for Human Rights and head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in New York, and TIJ executive director Prof. Dr. Kittipong Kittayarak. Speakers were Olivia Rope, PRI director of Policy and International Advocacy, Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, program manager at the World Health Organisation’s European Office (WHO/Europe), Joel Hernández García, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Dirk van Zyl Smit, professor at the University of Nottingham, and Sarah Belal, founder and executive director of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP). Moderated by PRI executive director Florian Irminger, the webinar attracted more than 500 participants from across the globe.
According to the Global Prison Trend 2020 report, about 11 million people of the world population are now behind bars and as many as 124 countries struggle with prison overcrowding. The number of inmates exceeds the capacity of correctional facilities because the world traditionally focuses on imprisonments. Across the globe, about 700,000 members of vulnerable groups such as women are imprisoned while more than one million children and youths are in police custody.
Ilze Brands Kehris described the current situation as a double crisis. Citing figures from the report, she said, “The number of inmates has now reached a record high. Many people have spent several years behind bars during pre-trial period. And so many inmates have been locked up inside overcrowded prisons, where they have faced unsanitary conditions, shortage of clean water and lack of good ventilation. The UN assistant secretary-general for Human Rights urged every country to explore methods for the release of inmates with risks of getting the deadly virus and to release inmates who have been detained without sufficient evidence.
Olivia Rope, while presenting prison statistics to reflect global trends in various dimensions, expressed concern about prison-overcrowding crisis in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. “Given the outbreak of COVID-19, prisoners now face nothing less than a death sentence,” said the PRI director of Policy and International Advocacy.
The Global Prison Trend 2020 report reveals that prison overcrowding has led to discrimination against certain groups of inmates and the unsuccessful rehabilitation of wrongdoers. Statistics show half of former prisoners become repeat offenders. In addition, the mortality rate for people in prison is as much as 50 percent higher than for people outside.
Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges of WHO/Europe pointed to documents revealing communicable disease infections in prisons and raised concerns that COVID-19 spread could be aggravated at overcrowded prisons. She then demanded that country leaders pay attention to prison overcrowding and emphasised that the government directly had the duty to address this crisis.
JPP founder and executive director Sarah Belal said South Asia had already actively responded to the COVID-19 situation, which underlined unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons. Pakistan, in particular, has found its prison capacity is overwhelmed by 117 percent when the number of inmates is used as the indicator. Pakistani prisons, moreover, lack testing devices to detect infections and even ambulances. In Pakistan’s Punjab, at least 10 percent of prisons do not have an ambulance. Pakistan has thus responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by releasing many inmates so as to reduce the risks of the new coronavirus spreading and killing people behind bars. “In many parts of the world, prisoners have been released to curb COVID-19 risks even without any political pressure because there is a mutual understanding that prisons’ sanitation is the country’s sanitation,” she told the webinar.
Regarding Thailand’s situation, Prof. Dr. Kittipong Kittayarak said the TIJ had already informed relevant parties in the country of the COVID-19 situation in Thai prisons. According to him, TIJ has recognised the current time as an opportunity to highlight the need to implement judicial reform and introduce non-custodial measures. “COVID-19 has affected people’s behaviors and crime patterns. We thus should use this opportunity to improve crime prevention and judicial processes. We want to see imprisonment used only as the last resort. In the event that imprisonment is necessary, its length should be short,” he emphasised.
Dirk van Zyl Smit, professor at the University of Nottingham, said the policy that imposed a lengthy jail term and life imprisonment threatened the life of a prisoner and in effect was no different to the death penalty. He said PRI therefore had pushed for penal reform and the development of prisons into places where prisoners can be rehabilitated within a humanitarian framework.
The webinar also addressed problems of public perception towards prisoners. Joel Hernández García, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said media could help bring about the changes. “Media should accurately report prison conditions and situations. News reports should emphasise humanity and inmates’ human rights in the wake of the pandemic, rather than political issues”.
Prof. Dr. Kittipong Kittayarak said public communications was important. “In Thailand, people are worried about the danger of inmate release. But the TIJ has only pressed for the release of prisoners with a short jail term, inmates jailed in pre-trial period, elderly inmates, and inmates whose detention is not appropriate. Aside, even if inmates are released early, they will still be subject to social control. It is important that we communicate with people about this point and make them understand prison conditions and inmates,” he said.
PRI and TIJ have pressed for the reform of prison management and introduction of non-custodial punitive measures for criminals with aim to reduce the number of inmates and increase their quality of life, as well as that of prison officials, especially now that the COVID-19 outbreak poses a threat to the whole world.