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This morning, the government announced plans to release people on temporary licence (ROTL), supposedly as a reaction to the pandemic. Whilst this may seem like a step in the right direction, there’s a few things that are worth noting here.
THREAD: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/measures-announced-to-protect-nhs-from-coronavirus-risk-in-prisons
THREAD: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/measures-announced-to-protect-nhs-from-coronavirus-risk-in-prisons
1) This entire decision is justified as protecting the NHS and “brave prison staff.” The health of people inside is not mentioned once in the entire announcement. People inside are only talked about as a potential burden, not as people who are just as deserving of healthcare
As those who aren’t incarcerated. In this announcement, incarcerated people as positioned as a threat to a depoliticised and benevolent NHS that they supposedly have no (or at least a less legitimate) claim to compared to people on the outside. Instead, the only people in
Prison estates whose health is taken into account is prison staff. There has been no mention of how staff endanger people inside (both before and during the pandemic) through not social distancing from each other. Prison staff on multiple estates have
Spending their shifts in close contact with each other playing card and board games since prisons went into lockdown, making the risk of transmission between staff extremely high. Still, estates consider incarcerated people infection risks to staff and never the other way round.
2) ROTL here is based on the supposed risk to the community, not who is most at risk of complications from COVID-19. People convicted of “violent” crimes won’t be eligible even if they have 2 months or less on their sentence. This demonises people who have been convicted of those
crimes, implying that their health is inherently less important than people who are supposedly “non violent”.
3) Although up to 3500 people could be eligible for ROTL, this is going to be staggered. It’s unclear how many people will actually be released next week. This is far from the urgent action that needs to be taken to protect incarcerated people from this pandemic.
