Notable review of worldwide decarceration efforts in response to COVID-19

Via this webpage overview and this key findings document, the group Harm Reduction International has assembled some interesting information about how countries around the world have been approaching decarceration efforts in response to the coronavirus.  Here are excepts of the overview and key findings:

Harm Reduction International monitored prison decongestion measures adopted around the world between March and June 2020 in response to COVID-19, and found evidence of such schemes in 109 countries.  We tracked criteria for eligibility and implementation of the measures. Noting that UN experts recommended countries release "those charged for minor and non-violent drug and other offences" in the context of COVID-19, we further focused on how these measures impact on people in prison for drug offences.

Despite a scarcity of official information, we found that around a fourth of countries implementing decongestion schemes explicitly excluded people incarcerated for drug offences; effectively prioritising punitive approaches to drug control over the health of the prison population and the individual.

Looking at the cumulative effect of COVID-19-related schemes, we observe that in total, they reduced the global prison population by less than 6%, as at 24 June 2020.  This falls significantly short of expectations and the significant political commitments made in the name of public health.

109 countries and territories adopted decongestion measures in an attempt to curb the risk of COVID-19 transmission within prisons. The main measures introduced are:

• early releases, often through sentence commutation (54 countries),
• pardons (34 countries),
• diversion to home arrest (16 countries), and
• release on bail/parole (8 countries).

In some countries (including Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica and Iran) release measures are temporary, therefore prisoners are expected to return to prisons at the end of the emergency....

A close up on countries:  

• No decongestion measures were reported in China and Russia, the countries with respectively the 2nd and 4th highest prison populations in the world.
• The majority of countries in Africa and Latin America introduced decongestion schemes.
• The most significant gap in uptake can be observed in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where only Belarus and Kyrgyzstan adopted ad-hoc measures.  Several Southeast Asian countries adopted measures to decongest prisons, which are severely overcrowded — mainly due to the high rate of incarceration for drug offences. Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand released a total of 90,000 prisoners.  However, people detained for certain drug offences are excluded from eligibility in Indonesia and the Philippines.
• Hundreds of foreign nationals, many of whom are migrant workers, were repatriated following pardons and other early release measures adopted in the Middle East —  including 150 Bangladeshi nationals imprisoned for drug offences in Bahrain.