Coronavirus and its Effect on Prisons and Prisoners

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its catastrophic effects t on
different aspects of human life, including national health and security and
personal and social wellbeing of people, there must be special consideration
to the criminal proceedings and the situation of the prisons and the prisoners.
There have been some initiatives in the form of regulations and bylaws to
manage the special conditions created by judicial authorities and correction
system to materialize the social distancing requirements in prisons. Besides,
this disease and its fast spread created many chances for development of the
Iranian judiciary system along with the developed countries. Some of the
measures taken in this era are included in an executive order called
"organization and moderation of prisons' population" and some other
initiatives like maximizing the use of parole and probation, alternative
punishments and electronic proceedings. There have been also challenges
and deficiencies in our legal system which are related to this pandemic and
must be considered carefully. In this paper, analysis has been made about the
effect of covid-19 pandemic on prisons and prisoners and challenges and
opportunities created.