University of Silesia in Katowice

Developing a catalogue of prison rules that should be implemented in the event of an epidemic by determining which restrictions are necessary and which can be abandoned, or replaced with other forms of social relations. Examining how to rebuild inmates’ possibilities to contact the outside world under the strict sanitary regime.

keywords: pandemic, prisoners, COVID-19, inmates, imprisonment sentence

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected people’s lives around the world. One of the groups most heavily affected by the pandemic restrictions are inmates. The necessity of introducing a strict sanitary regime in prisons was not surprising due to the risk of spreading the virus in penitentiary units. Therefore, it is not surprising that in order to ensure the safety of prisoners and employees, the administration of prisons tried to limit the number of people entering the prisons by suspending the visitations of relatives, therapists, teachers, priests, and excluding external employment. Certainly, these methods did manage to limit the spread of the virus. The question is whether such a high price for health was necessary and justified or whether that goal could not be reached in another way.

Once the sentence has been served, inmates will eventually return to their environments. It is in the interest of the entire society that inmates leave their penitentiary units as better people than they were at the moment of committing a crime. The pandemic does not facilitate such a solution, especially by limiting contact with the outer world, suspending visitations, courses, or therapies. Thus, it seems essential to develop a catalogue of prison rules that should be implemented in the event of an epidemic by determining which restrictions are necessary and which can be abandoned, or replaced with other forms of social relations, and finally, how to rebuild inmates’ possibilities to contact the outside world under the strict sanitary regime.