Government actions for COVID-19 control and prevention in prisons: a scoping review

Abstract

This is a scoping review of the literature on actions taken by countries during 2020 regarding the care for people living in the prison environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We selected 54 publications for data mining and found data from 45 countries, which were orga-nized into categories. Most of the literature ad-dressed strategies adopted by countries with ad-vanced economies. All of them mentioned some strategies to reduce viral transmission – the major ones were restricted/suspended family visits and desincarceration – and interventions to improve infrastructures in prisons, the provision of a tele-phone or other devices for calls or video calls being the most mentioned. Policies to mitigate the effects of the epidemic and interventions were found in publications referencing 33 countries, with the main focus on keeping family contact and reviewing the public safety policy. Concerning governance policies, measures from 11 countries were reported, and the most cited was national authority reinforcement. This study highlights the need for research on the success of each strategy and the differences among those countries.