What’s it like being locked up during lockdown? The latest statistics on prison safety paint a grim picture of life behind bars, which has been made worse by the pandemic.
Even the good news must be caveated. Assaults on staff have reduced quite dramatically, which in any circumstances must be a good thing given a backdrop of record-breaking rates of violence until the virus struck. However, they have reduced mainly as a consequence of an unprecedented lockdown introduced to prevent the spread of Covid-19. This has dramatically reduced the time inmates spend outside their cells; as a consequence, it has rather limited the available opportunities for prisoners to knock seven bells out of prison officers and each other. The unforeseen consequence is an epidemic of distress and despair.
Prisoners being deprived of the structure of a regime, purposeful activity, visits or much in the way of human interaction are harming themselves in record breaking numbers.
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