PANDEMIC AND PUNISHMENT

Abstract

The prevailing pandemic has changed the world completely; it has led to a substantial loss of human life around the globe and has bestowed an unprecedented challenge on public health, food systems and the world of work. Due to the economic collapse, billions of people are at a risk of falling into extreme poverty and nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion workforce is at a risk of losing their livelihoods. The pandemic is not merely affecting public and private sectors but has also been adversely affecting the criminal justice systems all over the world. During the pandemic, a spotlight has been shone on prisons which have been described as petri dishes of contagion. There were serious concerns that without intervention it would spread rapidly in prisons and modelling estimations by Public Health England made available in late April suggested that, without action, there could be as many as 77,800 cases and 2,700 deaths from a prison population of around 81,000 .The courts, too, are struggling to adopt procedures to meet social distancing requirements while law enforcement officers must balance their policing duties with efforts to minimize the risk of transmission between themselves and the prison communities.