Reflections on the Scottish experiences of recovering after the pandemic

ABSTRACT

An interview with Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland is presented. Sinclair-Gieben said that despite the predictions, there have been very few deaths in custody and a lot of that is due to a really robust approach to managing the virus transmission risk. It's quite impressive and has been a huge challenge. Prisons across Scotland had many of their own staff going off as well, but they responded quickly. For example, the rapid introduction of in-cell telephony and virtual visits. There was a significant amount of communication to prisoners and staff to make sure they knew that what was happening to them, that was not dissimilar to the community. One of the real benefits of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the rapid introduction of digitalization across justice. Despite these positive changes, there were inevitably glitches in the delivery of new technologies. There was a whole rumour that the mobile phones could be adapted for criminal use by the smuggling in of SIM cards.