The article analyses an original dataset on policies adopted in 47 European countries between December 2019 and June 2020 to prevent coronavirus from spreading to prisons, applying event-history analysis. We answer two questions: 1) Do European countries adopt similar policies when tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons? 2) What factors are associated with prison policy convergence or divergence? We analyze two policies we identified as common responses across prisons around the world: limitations on visitation rights for prisoners, and early releases of prisoners. We found that all states in our sample implemented bans on visits, showing policy convergence. Fewer countries (16) opted for early releases. Compared to the banning of visitation, early releases took longer to enact. We found that countries with prison overcrowding problems were quicker to release or pardon prisoners. When prisons were not overcrowded, countries with higher proportions of local nationals in their prisons were much faster to limit visits relative to prisons in which the foreign population was high. This research broadens our comparative understanding of European carcerality by moving the comparative line further East, taking into account multi-level governance of penality, and analyzing variables that emphasize the ‘society’ element of the ‘punishment and society’ nexus.

该文章应用事件历史分析，分析了 2019 年 12 月至 2020 年 6 月期间 47 个欧洲国家为防止冠状病毒传播到监狱而采取的政策的原始数据集。我们回答两个问题：1) 欧洲国家在应对监狱中的 COVID-19 大流行时是否采取了类似的政策？2) 哪些因素与监狱政策趋同或分歧有关？我们分析了我们确定为世界各地监狱共同应对的两项政策：限制囚犯探视权和提前释放囚犯。我们发现我们样本中的所有州都实施了访问禁令，显示出政策趋同。更少的国家（16 个）选择提前发布。与禁止探视相比，早期版本的颁布时间更长。我们发现存在监狱过度拥挤问题的国家可以更快地释放或赦免囚犯。当监狱没有人满为患时，与外国人口较多的监狱相比，监狱中当地国民比例较高的国家限制探视的速度要快得多。这项研究通过将比较线进一步向东移动，考虑到惩罚的多层次治理，并分析强调“惩罚与社会”关系中的“社会”元素的变量，拓宽了我们对欧洲监狱的比较理解。