On 19 May Honduras’s penitentiary service (INP) declared a state of emergency in the El Porvenir maximum security prison, Francisco Morazán department.
Analysis:
The INP’s announcement, whereby the prison will not accept new inmates, followed reports that a prisoner had tested positive for coronavirus (Covid-19). It is the third such declaration in Honduras’s prisons, which have so far largely avoided major Covid-19 outbreaks. With the parlous state of the prison system having made headlines at the end of last year, after President Juan Orlando Hernández declared a six month state of emergency following incidents of violence, human rights activists are warning that, as is the case elsewhere, prisons in Honduras are ticking time bombs for coronavirus outbreaks, due to overcrowding and poor sanitation.
- According to an INP press release, six prisoners were tested in El Porvenir after displaying Covid-19 symptoms; the other five, who tested negative, are being held in isolation.
- On 16 May authorities confirmed a Covid-19 case in La Támara maximum security prison, also Francisco Morazán department, while on 28 April authorities reported the death of an inmate due to Covid-19 in another maximum security prison, El Pozo, in Santa Bárbara department.
- After authorities banned visits to prisons in mid-March as part of efforts to stop the spread of the virus, on 24 April congress approved a bill whereby pre-trial inmates suffering from an illness or health condition would be released to house arrest, depending on the gravity of the charges. This was in line with a call on 24 March by the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) for governments to “reduce prison populations and other detention populations wherever possible” in response to the pandemic.
- According to official figures cited by the World Prison Brief (WPB), published by the United Kingdom-based Institute for Criminal Policy Research, 53.1% of Honduras’s total prison population (21,629 in 27 prisons as of September 2019) are pre-trial detainees. The WPB puts overcrowding at 204%.
Looking Ahead: Local human rights activists such as Ramón Maldonado of NGO Comité de Derechos Humanos (Codeh) are already signalling concern about the spread of the disease in prisons. Following the death of an inmate in El Pozo, Maldonado raised concerns about what would then happen to other prisoners with whom the deceased had been in contact.
