THE POSSIBILITIES OF KEEPING A PHYSICAL DISTANCE AND PROVIDING INFORMATION TO PEOPLE DEPRIVED OF THEIR LIBERT Y “Visits and leave have been withdrawn due to the spread of infection, i.e. a risk and safety aspect. But new inmates from the outside continue to pour in. Personally, I was forced to spend [a number of days] in a shared cell with a person newly admitted. Then it is no longer about safety and risk, it is for the benefit of the Prison and Probation Service. The staff come and go, as do handymen and other workers. There does not seem to be any risk with this, but it is these people who will bring the infection in.” Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson stated that she had difficulty seeing how inmates who double occupy a normal-sized cell should be able to maintain the necessary physical distance. Referring to the fact that infected people may only have vague or atypical symptoms, the Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that it was not sufficient for the Prison and Probation Service to intervene and remove a person from a double-occupied cell when an inmate shows clear symptoms of infection. She further emphasised that situations can also arise when an inmate begins to show symptoms after being locked up for the night and that the fellow inmate, therefore, risks having to spend a long time with an inmate who may well be infected with Covid-19. In the view of Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson, there was reason to question whether the double occupancy of cells during the current conditions are compatible with the European Prison Rules. The double occupancy of cells exposes inmates to unnecessary risks and is not compatible with the requirement for physical distancing. The Parliamentary Ombudsman further doubted whether the double occupancy of cells is compatible with the requirement that inmates be tre- 5 ated with respect for their human dignity and with an understanding of the special difficulties associated with deprivation of liberty.3 In the view of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Prison There must not be and Probation Service double occupancy of should immediately take measures to ensure there cells where inmates canis no double occupancy not maintain a physical of cells where it is not distance to one another possible for inmates to keep the necessary physical distance. In the view of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, a newly admitted person should not be placed directly into a cell together with another inmate. The National Board of Institutional Care During the spring inspections, information emerged that people deprived of their liberty and staff had difficulty maintaining a physical distance to others. At the closing dialogue meeting, the management of the National Board of Institutional Care stated that the premise is that people deprived of their liberty should limit themselves to staying in their own department. The objective is also that staff should only work in one department. Contacts between departments are limited and the agency considers each department as a household. For this reason, the National Board of Institutional Care had assessed there to be no need to recommend that its institutions should, for example, rearrange furniture so that residents and staff could maintain a distance to one another. Parliamentary Ombudsman Thomas Norling stated that he did not share the National Board of Institutional Care’s view that it is possible to equate a department with 3 Chapter 1, Section 4 of the Prisons Act and Chapter 1, Section 4 of the Remand Prisons Act. – 31 –