ABSTRACT
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the intake of two categories of prisoners had been stopped: prisoners with relatively short sentences who awaited the execution of their sentence in freedom and prisoners who had to serve default detention because of not having paid a fine or for not having finished a community sentence. Both groups of prisoners started to be called to prison again from July, but as a response to this situation, Parliament recently asked for a study to research the possibility of replacing fine default detention by community punishment. Between 14 March and 2 June, almost all outstanding leave and visits were suspended, with some exceptions only for extraordinary situations. For pre-trial prisoners, hearings in open court were mostly replaced by video-hearings. Complaint procedures inside prison were largely digitised. Together with the limitation of the daily programme inside prison, this led to frustration and boredom, although some compensatory measures were undertaken, in particular to enhance the on-line possibilities for contact with the outside world. Surprisingly, double cells remained mostly in use during the pandemic, approved by the Appeal Board.
