CAPPTIVE - Covid-19 Action Prisons Project: Tracking Innovation, Valuing Experience How prisons are responding to Covid-19

The quality of staff engagement with prisoners is vital to prisoners’ well- being – taking an interest in the needs of each person as an individual, giving people time to talk through the effects of the quarantine regime, and helping people fill their time meaningfully. [...] The regime requires specific qualities of prison officers – taking an interest in the needs of each person as an individual, giving people time to talk through the effects of the quarantine regime, bringing imagination to the challenge of helping people fill their time meaningfully. [...] The prison population in England and Wales has, 1 CAPPTIVE3.qxp_Layout 1 15/01/2021 10:43 Page 2 however, reduced since the onset of the pandemic by 4,700 due largely to ordinary prison releases and the significantly fewer number of new receptions into prison due to the suspension of court processes (Ministry of Justice, 9 October 2020). [...] In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, time out of cell was severely restricted, leaving the vast majority of the prison population in a state of prolonged solitary confinement. [...] Most of the evidence in this briefing reflects the situation in prisons from June to the end of August, a period when infection in both prisons and community was at a relatively low level.