ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the Romanian prison system experienced the pandemic. Overall, this experience can be divided into two main temporal segments: before September 2020 and after September 2020. In the first part, the prison system managed to plan and implement robust measures that kept the pandemic outside the prison gates. In the context of the surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the general population, after September 2020, the number of infected inmates and staff increased steeply demanding new medical-administrative measures to contain and control the pandemic in prisons.
This chapter is an illustration that the prison system is ultimately an integral part of the society, as is evident from the measures imposed to limit the interactions between inside and the outside world. Furthermore, it is also an important message that public sentiments matter and can affect the options available to the government to control and steer the pandemic.
