BackDuring the month of March 2020, most European countries introduced lockdowns of their populations to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such measures can have an impact on the extent of crime and, indirectly, on the size of prison populations.
In order to measure the side-effects of the pandemic on the prison populations in the Council of Europe member states, the Council of Europe and the University of Lausanne launched the SPACE I – COVID-19 project. This project is part of the initiatives launched by the Council of Europe to follow closely the effects of the pandemic on prisons, inmates and probationers across Europe.
In the first report (concerning the first phase of the follow-up study on the impact of COVI-19 on prison and prisoners), Prisons and Prisoners in Europe in Pandemic Times: An evaluation of the short-term impact of the COVID-19 on prison populations, the aim was to measure the trend followed by prison populations from 1st January 2020 to 15th April 2020 (a period which includes roughly the first month of the European lockdowns) and to identify the percentage of that change that can be explained by releases related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the second publication, Prisons and Prisoners in Europe in Pandemic Times: An evaluation of the medium-term impact of the COVID-19 on prison populations, analyses trends in European prison populations during the first nine months of the year 2020 using four points in time as reference: 1 January, 15 April, 15 June, and 15 September. These dates correspond to the state of prisons and prison populations before the pandemic (1 January), after the first month of the lockdowns (15 April), by the end of the lockdowns (15 June) and by the end of the summer (15 September).
Source: University of Lausanne, Switzerland
