Sweden’s Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract:

The Swedish Prison and Probation Service (SPPS) formed a national crisis management team on March 12, 2020, in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The team, consisting of experts from multiple departments within the SPPS, coordinated efforts within the government agency to support the jails, prisons, probation offices, and national transportation service in managing the pandemic while upholding operational security and the safety of staff and inmates. The SPPS handled the Covid-19 outbreak by taking measures to minimize the risk of contagion spread, consistent with the recommendations of the Public Health Agency in Sweden.

These recommendations differ from those introduced in many other countries. For example, Sweden chose to avoid a general lockdown. The SPPS’s measures to minimize contagion spread included: canceling all visitation at-and furlough from-jails and prisons, placing inmates with suspected and confirmed Covid-19 infections in isolation, creating digital solutions to minimize travel and in-person meetings, as well as providing protective gear to manage infected inmates and inmates within a risk group. To date, the SPPS has had 143 confirmed inmate cases of Covid-19 and no deaths due to the virus.