Governments have long invested in approaches that place military strength and weapons at the core of their vision of international security instead of peace and human rights. On a national level, this notion of militarized security is frequently enacted through aggressive policing and incarceration as a means of social control, purportedly to protect “public safety”. As the COVID-19 pandemic presents our world with a very different kind of threat, governments must urgently listen to the calls of advocates who have long pushed back against these militarized notions of safety and security. This includes taking urgent action to protect the human rights of all, including incarcerated people.
COVID-19 and incarceration
Social movements against detention and incarceration have been active as long as prisons have existed. But these movements are especially resonant and urgently needed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where incarceration may mean a death sentence for the approximately 11 million people (1) who are imprisoned worldwide in prisons, jails, migrant detention facilities, and other internment camps.
Incarcerated people, definitionally deprived of their liberty and restricted in their movement, are uniquely vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many prisons, jails, and other detention facilities are overcrowded, dirty, have high rates of turnover, poor air circulation, and lack adequate water and sanitation products. Experts have pointed out that social distancing is not possible in many prisons due to facility design, and is even more difficult than in assisted living homes or cruise ships.(2) Exacerbated by poor sanitation and air quality in many prisons, incarcerated people also have higher rates of underlying health conditions than the general population, putting them at higher risk of having complications due to COVID-19.(3)
Countries including China, Italy, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States have reported COVID-19 cases in prisons.(4) Some of these cases have quickly ballooned into serious outbreaks, contributing to broader community spread. As of April 22, Rikers Island Jail in New York City has an infection rate of 9.3%,(5) significantly higher than the city’s overall infection rate of 1.7%. In one prison in Ohio, United States, 73% of inmates have tested positive for COVID-19.(6)
The urgency of decarceration during a pandemic
Incarcerated people have been rioting since the start of the pandemic to protest poor access to medical care, a lack of sanitation products, and overcrowding. So far, there have been prison riots in several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, France, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States.(7)
In Syria, existing family-led social movements that advocate for the rights of detainees and forcibly displaced people are intensifying their calls for the release of their loved ones, information regarding their whereabouts, and access to detention facilities in light of COVID-19.(8) At least 100,000 people are missing or detained in Syria, many detained arbitrarily for their resistance to authoritarian rule and exercising their human rights to expression and assembly.(9)
In the United States, there are rapidly growing calls for emergency release of people from prisons, jails, and immigration detention facilities.(10) The United States currently incarcerates over 2 million people (approximately 1/5 of the world’s prison population).(11) People from Black, Native, and Latinx communities are disproportionately incarcerated as a result of pervasive, structural racial and class discrimination in the criminal justice system that targets communities of color. Simultaneously, there is advocacy campaigning for the release of migrants from immigration detention, clemency for the release of elderly and people with underlying health conditions from jails, and also for wider humanitarian release, growing out of the prison abolition (12) and other decarceral movements.
In Egypt and Yemen, groups are advocating for the release of political prisoners, as well as prisoners who are elderly or have underlying conditions.(13) Egyptian prisons are extremely over-capacity and unhygienic, and even under normal circumstances, prisoners are routinely denied access to medical care.(14)
While these movements vary in terms of their aims, leadership, and theories of change, what they share in this moment is a sense of heightened urgency in light of the growing public health crisis.
Rethinking ‘public safety’ during COVID-19
As the pandemic worsens, it is vital for our societies to protect public health and ensure the wellbeing of every person, including incarcerated people, by virtue of their fundamental human rights. Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that “[a]ll persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person".(15) In order to curb outbreaks in jails and prisons, some governments, including in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, and some US states, have begun to decarcerate, either temporarily or permanently, as part of their COVID-19 emergency response.
Overall, there has been a trend of increased reliance on militarized approaches and surveillance techniques during the pandemic. Police and military forces have been given increased power during COVID-19 to surveil neighborhoods for lockdown compliance, and punish those who violate social distancing guidelines(16) often through brutal force.(17) Some countries have imposed large fines for violating lockdown rules; others have threatened years in prison(18) and even death.(19) Countries throughout the world are using digital surveillance to monitor citizens’ movements using cellphone data and facial recognition technology, posing risks to privacy rights.(20)
Increased militarization is not the answer: in fact, as feminist advocates have long argued, it is at the root of the problem. For decades, leaders have chosen to invest in militarization, incarceration, and repression over public health and wellbeing. Repressive regimes have used arbitrary detention and violence to stifle free expression. Governments everywhere have largely failed to facilitate holistic models of collective accountability that ensure justice for victims, provide reparations for harms, and address the root causes of violence. The fact that many governments have already acted to release incarcerated people during COVID-19 should provide evidence to the fact that our societies already incarcerate too many people, often without any basic cause.
What the pandemic has made clear is that our societies must invest in a different vision of safety and security, one that centers human rights, accountability and justice, and wellbeing. This vision is antithetical to the repression and violence that we currently see, fueled by leaders that choose to use their power for violence. We must reinvest in public health, housing, and robust social safety nets, so that when the next crisis comes, we have what we really need to make us safe.
Genevieve Riccoboni
Genevieve is based in New York and is an associate for the Women, Peace and Security program at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She is also active in local organising on issues related to policing and mass incarceration and is a policy advisor to a progressive Congressional campaign. She is interested in gender and conflict, conflict prevention, human rights, and racial justice.
Follow Genevieve on Twitter: @genriccoboni
References
(1) Birkbeck, University of London Institute for Criminal Policy Research, “Global prison population soars,” 7 November 2018, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/global-prison-population-soaring.
(2) Alex Kajstura and Jenny Landon, “Since you asked: Is social distancing possible behind bars?” Prison Policy Institute, 3 April 2020, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/04/03/density/.
(3) Peter Wagner and Emily Widra, “Five ways the criminal justice system could slow the pandemic,” Prison Policy Institute, 27 March 2020, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/03/27/slowpandemic/.
(4) See World Prison Brief, “News on COVID-19 and Prisons”, https://www.prisonstudies.org/news/news-covid-19-and-prisons and COVID-19 Behind Bars Project, https://covid19behindbars.com.
(5) The Legal Aid Society, “COVID-19 Infection Tracking in NYC Jails,” https://legalaidnyc.org/covid-19-infection-tracking-in-nyc-jails/.
(6) Bill Chappell and Paige Pfleger, “73% of Inmates at an Ohio Prison Test Positive for Coronavirus”, NPR, 20 April 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/20/838943211/73-of-inmates-at-an-ohio-prison-test-positive-for-coronavirus
(7) Wikipedia, “Impact of the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic on prisons,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_on_prisons
(8) “Families for Freedom Demands Urgent Action to Release All Syrian Detainees”, Orient News, 26 March 2020, https://orient-news.net/en/news_show/178678/0/Families-For-Freedom-demands-urgent-action-to-release-all-Syrian-detainees.
(9) Sara Kayyali, “Syria’s Detainees Left Even More Vulnerable to Coronavirus,” Human Rights Watch, 16 March 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/16/syrias-detainees-left-even-more-vulnerable-coronavirus#.
(10) Release Aging People in Prison website: http://rappcampaign.com, Free them All for Public Health Campaign website: https://freethemall4publichealth.org.
(11) Peter Wagner and Wanda Bertram, “What percent of the U.S. is incarcerated? And other ways to measure mass incarceration,” Prison Policy Institute, 16 January 2020, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/01/16/percent-incarcerated/.
(12) Critical Resistance, “What is the Prison Industrial Complex? What is Abolition?” http://criticalresistance.org/about/not-so-common-language/.
(13) Amnesty International, “Egypt: Release prisoners of conscience and other prisoners at risk amid Coronavirus outbreak,” 20 March 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/03/egypt-release-prisoners-of-conscience-and-other-prisoners-at-risk-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/ and United Nations News, “Release inmates in Yemen to avert nationwide coronavirus outbreak, experts urge,” 30 March 2020, https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1060642.
(14) Amr Magdi, “Coronavirus: Egypt’s Prisons Could Spare Disaster with Conditional Releases,” Human Rights Watch, 16 March 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/16/coronavirus-egypts-prisons-could-spare-disaster-conditional-releases.
(15) International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx
(16) Karsten Noko, “The problem with army enforced lockdowns in the time of COVID-19,” Al Jazeera, 2 April 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/problem-army-enforced-lockdowns-time-covid-19-200401101641258.html.
(17) Rebecca Ratcliffe, “Teargas, beatings, and bleach: the most extreme COVID-19 lockdown controls around the world,” The Guardian, 31 March 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/01/extreme-coronavirus-lockdown-controls-raise-fears-for-worlds-poorest.
(18) Robyn Dixon, “In Russia, facial surveillance and threat of prison being used to make coronavirus quarantines stick,” Washington Post, 25 March 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-russia-facial-surveillance-and-risk-of-jail-seek-to-make-coronavirus-quarantines-stick/2020/03/24/a590c7e8-6dbf-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html.
(19) Amnesty International: Philippines: President Duterte gives “shoot to kill” order amid pandemic response,” 2 April 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/philippines-president-duterte-shoot-to-kill-order-pandemic/.
(20) Ray Acheson, “COVID-19: The Risks of Relying on Technology to ‘Save Us’ from the Coronavirus,” WILPF, 15 April 2020. https://www.wilpf.org/covid-19-the-risks-of-relying-on-technology-to-save-us-from-the-coronavirus/.