ABSTRACT
The primary action for preventing the spread of COVID-19 in Japanese prisons is “border control”, which is intended to stop the virus from entering the prisons. One factor making such controls necessary is an increase in the number of elderly inmates. One of these controls during the declared state of emergency was limiting visits with inmates, but no substitute measures were taken except for increasing the frequency of confidential correspondence allowed with inmates’ families and other parties. The use of telephones was not permitted. At prisons, isolation gowns were produced instead of normal penal labour, in order to enable prisoners to make “social contribution” purposes. However, there is no clear legal basis for these changes. Furthermore, as Japanese prisons suffer a shortage of full-time physicians, communication technologies developed in the face of the pandemic may have positive effects for addressing this problem in the future.
