ABSTRACT
This summary chapter draws conclusions from the national reports that form the bulk of this book. These conclusions are set against an international context where prison systems had to deal with COVID-19-induced problems of different degrees of seriousness, inter alia because many systems were overcrowded to very varying levels when the pandemic broke out, and because the countries where they operated responded to the pandemic with varying degrees of efficacy. While carefully noting that the COVID-19 pandemic cannot methodologically be regarded as a natural experiment, the chapter does find some indications of what best practices going forward should look like. These include improved methods of reducing prison populations and more use of modern technology to improve prisoners’ contacts with the outside world. Better preparations, including clearer legal bases, for dealing swiftly with future pandemics are also indicated.
