ABSTRACT
Large outbreaks of COVID-19 infections occurred in Chinese prisons in February 2020, as China started bringing the pandemic under control. The incidents raised a serious concern that the rise in infected cases in the prison system might derail the overall effort to contain the spread of the virus in the country. The prison system, led by the Ministry of Justice, took swift actions to develop a series of measures to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in all prisons. Those measures included strengthening centralised control and interagency collaboration, blocking the route of virus transmission, enforcing grid management, suspending all family visits, and improving physical and mental health services. This chapter reviews those strategies and assesses their overall effectiveness in reducing COVID-19 infections in the prison setting. The chapter also discusses the limitations of the Chinese approach and its implications for prison reforms.
