Incarcerated in a Pandemic: How COVID-19 Exacerbated the “Pains of Imprisonment”

Abstract

Although the exact toll of COVID-19 in U.S. prisons and jails is relatively undetermined, estimates show that deaths due to the virus in the nation's correctional facilities are approximately six times higher than deaths in the general population. During the pandemic, jail and prison structures as well as significant overcrowding made it virtually impossible to institute protective measures against infection in correctional settings. Jail and prison administrators suspended in-person visitation, leaving those incarcerated even further isolated, and their friends and family in fear for the health and safety of their loved ones. The present study examines narratives of individuals who spoke about their experiences while incarcerated during the pandemic. The data for the study were gathered from prison reform advocacy organizations that featured individuals’ stories. The narrative findings provide insight into the traumatic experiences that incarcerated people endured, how institutional failures exacerbated their mistrust of the criminal legal system, and their efforts to cope.

Introduction

On any given day in the United States, over two million people are incarcerated behind bars (Sawyer & Wagner, 2020), and approximately 11 million people come in and out of the jail system (Zeng, 2020). Although individuals entering prisons and jails are among the most vulnerable in our society, the level of deprivation they experience in correctional settings exacerbates their vulnerability. Especially in the face of the coronavirus disease 2019, prisons and jails have become the epicenter of transmission, heightened crisis, and fear. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, prison populations had infection rates five to six times higher than in general populations in the community, while mortality rates were two to three times higher (Piquero et al., 2020; Saloner et al., 2020). As of October 31, 2022, there have been 626,180 COVID-19 cases among people incarcerated in U.S. prisons, including 2,907 deaths (COVID Prison Project, 2022). Correctional staff has also been greatly affected by the virus, with 232,565 infections among staff and 279 deaths (COVID Prison Project, 2022).

Correctional facilities are hazardous congregate settings, as living quarters are often heavily populated and poorly ventilated, and physical distancing is often impossible. When these environmental conditions are mixed with people who already have pre-existing medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, chronic lung or liver disease, and lower immune system), experiencing complications of COVID-19 becomes prevalent across incarcerated individuals (Chin et al., 2021; Maruschak et al., 2015). Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies on COVID-19 in carceral settings have been published. Most of the literature, however, focused on the key messages and themes that COVID-19 represents in correctional facilities—commonly discussing the degree of threat the virus presents to the correctional population due to custodial incapability to adhere to traditional safety protocols. Despite the existing literature portraying inherent risks and COVID-19 management issues in correctional settings, very few studies involve face-to-face research with people in custody (Maycock, 2022). To fully comprehend the true impact of the pandemic on prison and jail operations, we must learn from the most vulnerable people—those who were directly affected by the risks, inequalities, policy changes, safety protocols, and collateral damages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper aims to shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the “pains of imprisonment” for the people detained in custodial settings (Sykes, 1958) and exacerbated mistrust of the criminal legal system. Although the statistical figures of confirmed cases and deaths in correctional institutions manifest the pandemic's seriousness, the degree of adequate care toward incarcerated individuals is largely unknown. Thus, in the current study, we use a qualitative analytical lens to understand COVID-19's impact on the incarcerated through their own words. We explore the themes and topics that emerge in interviews and letters written by people in U.S. prisons and jails about the painful experiences they endured during the height of the pandemic.

History of Infectious Diseases in Correctional Settings

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first health crisis to put correctional populations at risk. Historically, correctional facilities have been vulnerable to global infectious disease outbreaks of influenza (Besney et al., 2017; Robinson et al., 2012) and tuberculosis (Lambert et al., 2016; Tavoschi et al., 2018). Since the fives waves of deadly outbreaks of cholera spread during the 19th century, prisons continuously have been easy targets for influenza pandemics through the 20th and 21st centuries: A/H1N1 in 1918, A/H2N2 in 1957, A/H3N2 in 1958, SARS-CoV-1 in 2003, A/H1N1 in 2009, and MERS in 2012 (Bick, 2007; Chao et al., 2017; Marland et al., 2020; Turner & Levy, 2010).

The outbreak of highly infectious influenza in 1918 and the swine flu pandemic in 2009 provide two significant insights. First, prisons and jails used social distancing and isolation as primary protective measures (e.g., prohibiting visitors, halting religious activities, and limiting assemblies). Second, vaccinations were never sufficiently available to incarcerated individuals. Especially in the case of the 2009 swine flu, correctional officials failed to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory recommendation that vaccines should include everyone other than geriatric people with chronic conditions (CDC, 2009). As a result, incarcerated individuals were left out of the planning efforts. Even if enough vaccines became available to the general public, people in small jails never received one (Lee et al., 2014). For example, when the flu season was highly infectious between 2017 and 2018, Oregon Coffee Creek correctional facility vaccinated only 18% of the prison population (Dober, 2018). Other prisons and jails in Texas, Iowa, and Kentucky also had low vaccination rates, as some facilities did not require vaccines for prisoners and staff (Dober, 2018). Although experts warned that 70–80% of the population must be vaccinated to prevent a localized pandemic, the limited vaccine supply for people detained and incarcerated has been a historical constant and persisted in the early stages of the pandemic.

COVID-19 and Correctional Populations

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was classified as a pandemic, given the nature of the infection and its potential impact on human health (World Health Organization, 2020). In 2020, the COVID-19 case rate was 5.5 times higher in correctional facilities than in the community (Bey, 2020; Saloner et al., 2020). Since the start of the pandemic, 663,196 positive cases and 3,181 deaths among incarcerated individuals were reported from prisons, jails, youth facilities, and immigration detention centers across the United States (UCLA Law, 2023). ¹ The major barriers to early testing of correctional populations were a shortage of tests and labs to process them, testing prioritization for “frontline” individuals, and focusing on only testing people showing symptoms (Lemasters et al., 2020; Riback et al., 2023; So & Smith, 2020). During the first 15 months of the pandemic, California, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Texas, Michigan, and Florida had the most COVID-19 cases (Marshall Project, 2020). Texas, the BOP, and California also experienced the most deaths among incarcerated individuals (Marshall Project, 2020).

Preventive Measures and Challenges During the Pandemic

Despite the disastrous impact of COVID-19 on the correctional population, due to the physical layout and rigid security protocols required to maintain order, it is often difficult to enforce even the basic standards of COVID-19 prevention and mitigation in incarcerated settings. Those in prison often live in overcrowded environments with poor sanitation, a lack of water, soap, and other personal hygiene products, inadequate investment in healthcare, and limited available space for quarantine (Franco-Paredes et al., 2020; Hummer, 2020). Incarcerated individuals are at higher risk of experiencing poor physical and mental health outcomes than the general population (Fazel et al., 2016), which also increases the risk of experiencing severe complications of COVID-19. The lack of effective protocols occurred despite the warnings from the United Nations and Human Rights Watch that the conditions of confinement could be disastrous for incarcerated populations (Colville, 2020; Human Rights Watch, 2020a, 2020b).

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, many prisons have halted in-person activities, including group therapy, religious activities, and outside visitation, to reduce contact. While non-pharmaceutical interventions are known to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, mask wearing and physical distancing are less feasible in such settings. Facilities often had limited access to personal protective equipment (PPE). For instance, PPE available in most prisons and jails consists of non-surgical masks only (Widra & Hayre, 2020). Several states provide PPE to incarcerated people and prison officials only if they were exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Some facilities did not provide hand sanitizer liquids or gels because those high-alcohol formulas could be considered contraband (Widra & Hayre, 2020). However, access to such products is crucial for preventing transmission and maintaining the health of the incarcerated.

Given the structural impediments in correctional facilities, vaccination appears to be the key to controlling COVID-19. In fact, vaccination is the most effective preventive measure against COVID-19, reducing the incidence, morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality (Henry, 2021; Rahmani et al., 2022). However, the limited supply of vaccines and lack of prioritization put incarcerated individuals at heightened risk (Quandt, 2020; Ramaswamy et al., 2021; Spaulding & Zawitz, 2022; Wang et al., 2021). Several studies examined vaccine allocation to correctional populations (Herring & Widra, 2021; Peterson et al., 2021) and noted that incarcerated individuals were ineligible for vaccination until the end of 2020 (Biondi et al., 2022; Strodel et al., 2021).

For instance, in their study on vaccination prioritization in prisons, Biondi et al. (2022) found that out of the 36 states examined, only 21 prioritized incarcerated individuals for vaccination. Just 10 states vaccinated more than 70%, and only one state—North Dakota—fully vaccinated more than 80% of incarcerated persons (Biondi et al., 2022). Also, Strodel et al. (2021) examined the 2020 vaccine dissemination plans for all states to determine the prioritization of correctional populations based on the rollout phase. Only 22% of states prioritized incarcerated people in phase 1, even though other groups with similar environmental risks, such as congregate living in long-term care facilities, did receive early prioritization.

To respond to a growing number of COVID-19 outbreaks in correctional facilities, civil rights attorneys, public health experts, and advocacy groups have made appeals for prison depopulation (Akiyama et al., 2020). Many jurisdictions have restricted the admission and quickened the release of individuals in pre-trial detention or people convicted of nonviolent offenses in prisons and jails and reduced the population in immigration detention centers. Recent reports have shown that decarceration was not as effective as it should have been. Although there was a 25% reduction in prison and jail population by the summer of 2020, the dramatic population drops were primarily due to pandemic-related slowdowns in the criminal legal system, such as court closures and temporary suspension of transfers (Sawyer & Wagner, 2020). Despite this drop, jails were back to 87% of their starting populations, even when the Delta wave peaked (Sawyer & Wagner, 2020). Moreover, decarceration raises concerns about how pandemic responses could worsen racial disparities (Akiyama et al., 2020). Estimates indicate that the decarceration of African Americans has been much lower than that of whites during the pandemic in Illinois and Connecticut (Lyons, 2020).

While identifying the most effective safety measures to protect incarcerated persons from the pandemic is essential, correctional systems may experience difficult trade-offs. Decarceration and early releases help reduce overcrowding and reduce risks of virus transmission more effectively but may also cause public discontent (McCauley, 2022). Halting in-prison activities (e.g., work or group therapy, classes, religious activities, and recreation) allows social distancing but may cause adverse health effects among prisoners, especially if those prisoners have chronic healthcare issues. Implementing other safety protocols inside correctional facilities, such as quarantine, is essential to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, isolation practices, which may last for weeks, can cause anxiety and psychological distress among incarcerated individuals (Beichner et al., 2021; Brooks et al., 2020). Although the correctional system is primarily concerned with punishment and order maintenance within facilities, these priorities should not interfere with basic care and human rights (Mellow et al., 2017). The level of trust in the criminal legal process by system-impacted individuals and their families is already strained, and mistrust will only increase without a proper healthcare system.

The Intensification of Deprivation in Imprisonment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

According to Sykes (1958), “pains of imprisonment” encompass the various difficulties and hardships experienced by prisoners, including physical discomforts like overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, as well as psychological and emotional suffering, such as isolation and loss of freedom. In particular, Sykes (1958) outlines five basic deprivations or pains that describe daily life in prison: losses of liberty, heterosexual relationships, desirable goods and services, autonomy, and security. Numerous research studies have suggested that the management and administration of prisons are a major contributor to the pains, rather than the punishment of imprisonment itself (Haggerty & Bucerius, 2020; Morris & Rothman, 1995; Sykes, 1958; Zinger, 2012). This viewpoint is further reinforced in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as custodial management exacerbates the extent of deprivation and hardships experienced by prisoners.

For instance, the difficulties in controlling the spread of infectious diseases in prisons due to overcrowding, shared spaces, and unsanitary conditions have been amplified by the pandemic. Measures taken to reduce its spread, such as canceling visits, restricted phone time, suspending programs, social distancing, and extended isolation, have made prison life even more difficult. As a result, incarcerated individuals became more prone to suffer from feelings of anger, hopelessness, anxiety, irritability, paranoia, fear of infection, worsening of existing mental illnesses, and an increased risk of suicidal behavior (Fovet et al., 2020; Tozzo et al., 2020). Dhami et al. (2020) further noted that the inability to access goods and services, and scarce electricity, led to feelings of frustration, boredom, and isolation. The lack of activity and mental stimulation in prison have been found to negatively impact the mental health of those deprived of their freedom due to quarantine and lockdowns (Chen et al., 2020).

More specifically, Suhomlinova et al. (2022) surveyed individuals incarcerated in English and Welsh prisons and analyzed their experiences during the pandemic using the pains of imprisonment as a frame of reference. They found that individuals were subjected to various losses, including the following:

• Deprivation of liberty, such as isolation resulting from limited daily time outside their cell and solitary confinement.

• Deprivation of meaningful social contact, including closed libraries and workshops, limited opening of gyms, a prohibition on communal worship, and a lack of education programs.

• Deprivation of access to positive environmental stimulation, such as restrictions on access to most parts of the prison facility, the prevalence of negative stimuli, and intensified idleness.

• Deprivation of security, including a lack of testing and vaccination, a lack of resources for PPE, and restricted access to toilets.

• Deprivation of access to goods and services, including limited nutritious and quality meals due to regime restrictions, a shortage of healthcare due to staffing issues, and a lack of timely information about the pandemic and changes in the prison regime.

Similarly, Riback et al. (2023) recently interviewed incarcerated individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York to explore infection control in jails and prisons. They found that the environment of correctional facilities led to a sense of insecurity due to close proximity and high population density, as well as the perceived failure of facilities to provide adequate resources, such as cleaning supplies and masks. The study also found that the pandemic exacerbated the punitive conditions, and incarcerated individuals felt a lack of compassion from the correctional staff, leaving them feeling helpless. Furthermore, the study revealed that a lack of information from the correctional staff about the pandemic forced incarcerated individuals to rely on other sources for information on mitigation measures, such as television and peers.

Despite the existing information about the unintended consequences of restrictions aimed at controlling virus transmission, the depth of the incarcerated population's vulnerability during the pandemic remains relatively underinvestigated. Thus, the current study aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the pre-existing “pains” and “deprivations” experienced by incarcerated individuals. The data were gathered from prison reform advocacy organizations that featured individuals’ stories about their experiences while incarcerated during the pandemic. Such person-centered approaches to examining acute social problems provide valuable insight into the direct impact of policy change and the trauma it inflicts. In this context, such approaches also help elucidate how incarcerated individuals tried their best to survive amid institutional failures and heightened mistrust of the system.

Data and Analysis

Data

In this study, we examined interviews and written statements made publicly available by The Marshall Project and the Vera Institute of Justice. ² The Marshall Project, founded in 2014, is a nonprofit organization that publishes news and reports on criminal justice issues, including mass incarceration and its adverse effects. The organization provided extensive coverage of COVID-19 in the correctional context in 2020 and 2021, including tracking/counting cases nationwide and sharing the personal stories of impacted individuals to educate the public on the breadth of the pandemic among incarcerated populations. One of The Marshall Project's publications, entitled “How We Survived COVID-19 in Prison,” features first-hand written accounts from four people. The accounts were collected by a Marshall Project reporter and editor, who began corresponding with several incarcerated individuals in March 2020, and published four of the stories in April 2021. Another first-hand written account featured by The Marshall Project is a letter from a then-incarcerated individual who wrote to a judge to request compassionate release. ³

The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is a nonprofit research and policy organization. This organization also extensively covered COVID-19 in prisons and jails for education and advocacy purposes. One of Vera's projects, entitled “If Prison Walls Could Talk,” includes accounts from system-impacted individuals who were asked to reflect on how the pandemic has affected them. The project features brief recorded interviews with five people about COVID-19 and incarceration. The interviewees included those who were still incarcerated at the time, recently released individuals, and family members of the incarcerated. Table 1 provides more information about the speakers/writers (N = 10), such as facility location.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics.

Name	Age	Gender	Race	Offense	Sentence length	Facility/location	Source
Bruce	50	M	Black	Murder	Life	Sing Sing Correctional Facility, NY (state prison)	Marshall
Chalana	52	F	Black	Mortgage fraud	30 years	FCI Coleman, FL (federal prison)	Vera
Charles	33	M	Pacific Islander	Robbery	12 years + ICE hold	Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility, CA (private/GEO)	Vera
Christopher	53	M	Black	Murder	Life	Stanley Correctional Center, WI (state prison)	Marshall
Isaiah (son of Shonda)	17	M	Black/biracial	Vehicular assault	36 years	Columbia Correctional Institution, WI (state prison)	Vera
James	50	M	Black	Murder and burglary	Life	Marion Correctional Facility, OH (state prison)	Marshall
Jennifer	49	F	Black	Murder and kidnapping	Life	Florida Women's Reception Center, FL (state prison)	Marshall
Marie	56	F	Black	Medicare fraud	75 years	FMC Carswell, TX (Federal Prison/Medical Center)	Marshall
Ronnie	63	M	Black	Conspiracy	Life + 30 years	FMC Lexington, KY (federal prison/medical center)	Vera
Rufus (husband of Chazidy)	26	M	Black	Robbery and assault	9 years	Toledo Correctional Institution, OH (state prison)	Vera

Note. Descriptives obtained from data/stories and department of corrections/prison websites.

Analysis

The data used for the analysis included the full written texts supplied by The Marshall Project in its publication as well as the verbatim captions of the audio-recorded interviews provided by Vera. To conduct the analysis, the first author engaged in an initial round of inductive coding using MAXQDA, a qualitative data analysis program, to identify major themes related to incarceration experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic (Saldaña, 2015). This included a line-by-line reading of the texts to assess the general content. The first round of analysis allowed the researchers to recognize recurrences in verbiage, framing devices used, affective/emotional forms, and parallel representations within the individuals’ descriptions of their experiences (Miles et al., 2019; Ryan & Bernard, 2003). Within this round, concepts and codes were developed around the speakers’ language or expressions to fully reflect their perspectives (Bowen, 2006; Zaidi, 2022). Thereafter, the first author conducted a second round of coding with a focused approach to refine and condense the codes, as the qualitative inquiry process requires iteration to enhance the content analysis (Locke et al., 2022; Saldaña, 2015). Focused coding involves using the most substantial and frequent codes found during the initial stage to firmly and completely categorize the data and create a codebook (Charmaz, 2006; Qureshi & Ünlü, 2020).

Using the codebook, the second author independently conducted a round of deductive coding to ensure intercoder reliability and establish rigor for qualitative inquiry (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Nowell et al., 2017). Finally, the authors met to debrief and resolve any differing interpretations of the texts, and inter-coder reliability was at 90%. During these discussions, the authors noted that the codes were reflective of Sykes’ (1958) “pains of imprisonment” framework. For instance, the detailed descriptions of quarantine and isolation represented an increased loss of liberty, and the accounts of staff neglect and the absence of PPE represented an increased loss of security. The findings are organized to demonstrate the four most salient themes present in the interviews and written statements. The findings also include representative excerpts from the texts for illustrative purposes.

Findings

Within the narratives from individuals affected by the pandemic as it transpired in correctional facilities, we first found two prominent themes connected to the existing pains of imprisonment concepts: (1) descriptions of physical and emotional distress and (2) institutional failures. Both of these represent exacerbated losses of liberty, security, and autonomy. A third theme reflects what Haggerty and Bucerius (2020, p. 3) call “a logic of extension, which focuses on pains manifest outside of the prison walls,” as relatives of the incarcerated individuals described their agony as loved ones languished on the inside. The final theme represents an expansion of the “pains” in which extreme deprivation led to positive adaptations and empowerment: advocacy and resilience.

Descriptions of Physical and Emotional Distress

Similar to their “free” peers, incarcerated populations often experienced illness and isolation during the height of the pandemic. However, the incarcerated individuals herein explain how pandemic-related seclusion, quarantine, and anxiety were significantly pronounced within correctional facilities. They describe extreme restrictions on their autonomy to seek assistance and social support, and recount profound trauma while enduring personal sickness and witnessing others in distress.

Symptoms

All narratives discussed how the incarcerated individuals either experienced illness themselves or observed severe symptoms of people in their shared cells or blocks. They had to witness the real-time spread of the virus in their facilities without being able to protect themselves effectively. For instance, Christopher vividly explained his physical pain: “The body aches were terrible. It just felt like I was being crushed or punched all over my body.” Rufus also spoke about his bout with the virus:

It's like either my head [gets] to pounding and my body be cold, or like my knees and feet. I feel like it's tingling and something like poking at it and, like, my body [starts] aching and my ribs and stuff start hurting … [At one point] I couldn’t breathe, like at all. I started kicking on the door, my neighbor started kicking on the door. I couldn’t breathe. They brought me up there, put me on a breathing thing. They said, “Oh, I think it was a minor asthma attack.” They keep saying that it's my asthma but I know the difference.

Jennifer mentioned the swift transition from the virus in the news to the virus in the facility. She described when she first started experiencing symptoms and was placed in quarantine. She also commented on the absence of information about the breadth of the spread among other women in the facility:

So as we read news reports of the pandemic, it isn’t surprising that the prison hasn’t told us anything. … After I had a high fever, I was moved from my dorm [of 78 women] to one that holds only 10 women. … When my test came back positive, they put me in an isolation unit. I laid in bed with a fever and chills wondering when I’d get out and back to my dorm. I’ve heard there were some deaths, but I can’t be sure. No one tells us anything.

James and Christopher similarly expressed how quickly the virus went from a media phenomenon to an actual contagion inside the facilities:

When we first heard about COVID-19 on the news, we thought we would be safe from the virus because people in prison have very little contact with the outside world. … Then a guard got sick. … Soon after the first guard fell ill, prisoners started getting sick too. They’d pass out or lose their sense of taste and smell. Some would have trouble breathing. One after another, the guys were getting rushed out … Out of the windows of our housing unit we were able to see multiple ambulances pull up to the prison's back gate and pick people up. (James)

In early April, my cellmate was using the phone in the dayroom when someone heard him cough twice. Since March, we’d been hearing about the coronavirus, and the state was under a safer-at-home order. Someone reported my cellmate's coughing to an officer. That's when the fiasco began. (Christopher)

Heightened Vulnerability

At times, the individuals’ accounts referenced heightened vulnerability to infection based on underlying medical conditions. The individuals also explained a lack of treatment for other illnesses due to resources being reserved for coronavirus cases. Ronnie stated that he knew the men in the facility would be particularly susceptible because they were immunocompromised, and they had some of the most severe outcomes:

I was incarcerated at the medical center [because] I was a diabetic. … Once we start hearing about the virus, most of us knew we was already a pre existing medical condition. So we took it real serious. … The ones that had heart problems, we lost more than anybody. Once you get weak, and you already got a weak heart, it was pretty much over.

Marie wrote to a judge about the lack of attention to her underlying illness in multiple facilities. She also pleaded for compassionate release to access better treatment and wrote about her increased vulnerability:

I have not been getting the treatments I should be getting for my stage 4 breast cancer. … I am at risk to contract corona because of my terminal status. … My condition has changed completely since I was detained and came to prison … The way things are going regarding my treatments [here] can lead me to my grave. Please Judge help me get a second opinion out of this facility if possible as soon as possible or else I will die leaving behind my twin boys [and daughter.]

Marie, like many others, hoped for compassionate release during the pandemic (James et al., 2022). Rufus, too, reflected on the need for this type of leniency to save people's lives:

Yes, Rufus Bowman made a mistake. Yes, well, Rufus Bowman's a human. They’re not looking at us as human. Because if they were … I understand everyone can’t go home. I understand that there are some bad people here. But the people who are high risk and really can’t fight this, you have to release them.

However, the promise of system-wide compassion was not realized, as relatively few requests were granted despite the dangerous consequences of infection among the immunocompromised. Analyses of the requests and decisions indicated that compassionate release in federal prisons was approved in only 13% of cases in states with extreme spreads, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas (Blakinger & Neff, 2021; Petri, 2022; Tolan, 2021). In Marie's case, prison administration did not grant the request she made in March 2020, despite her elevated risk. Predictably, she contracted the virus in July 2020. Marie died in the hospital on August 25, 2020.

Negative Emotions

As expected, all narratives discussed experiencing negative emotions during incarceration amidst the pandemic. The personal accounts most prominently described were fear, panic, frustration, and hopelessness. For instance, tying into the previous theme, Chalana and Charles described their intense distress upon realizing their higher risk of infection:

It's people that have respiratory issues or like myself with asthma. If you had high blood pressure, if you had heart problems, if you were obese, there were all these contributing factors. And then we found out that it disproportionately affects African Americans over others. And so when I realized that I had five of the conditions, I really began to panic and think, oh my goodness, if this gets in here, I may not live to make it home. (Chalana)

I’ve been talking to [administration] about this thing for weeks now. And nothing has changed. And so this made me fearful, because I found myself part of that group of people that could really be affected by this COVID-19 because of my asthma. … Fear, fear was the thing that drove me. I mean, surviving 12 years of prison. And to think that I could be killed in a detention center over a civil matter, trying to fight to be reunited with my family. (Charles)

Other individuals depicted hopelessness or indifference that they or other individuals felt. Incarceration regularly yields feelings of despondency due to various deprivations. The pandemic, characterized by their lack of access to vital care and information, greatly intensified feelings of isolation and despair. Ronnie and Jennifer spoke to these emotions:

We started with seven. Got up to 10. Then next time you look around, it's 18. When it got up to 40, it got up to 50. And after that, you have 60 guys in one wing, had corona. … Once you realize you couldn’t go anywhere, cause your door is locked and you’re next to someone that has it, and you have it, you just accept it. (Ronnie)

We’ve also heard a rumor that we will receive 160 new commits from various counties. I hope they’ll be placed on a 14-day quarantine and take the virus seriously. But I have learned that not everyone wants to live. A lot of the women are like the fools who refuse to leave when a hurricane is headed their way. I don’t believe the world was prepared for any of this; it seems like most are walking in the dark with a pen light. (Jennifer)

Bruce explained that although the facility tried to keep the population informed through daily updates, such attempts to quell fear ultimately proved futile:

The meetings relieve some of the stress and anxiety within the prison. However, each time someone passes out or dies, it draws everyone's attention back to the reality … Every single night I hear countless men coughing through the night. There are countless incarcerated men who have symptoms: Loss of taste and smell, headaches, and chills. Some are afraid to be quarantined because it means they’d go to the SHU.

Additionally, Chalana spoke of feeling guilty and powerless after being granted release. Her optimism was overshadowed because her peers did not receive the same compassion:

I think the term is called survivor's remorse, where you’re happy that you made it out. But you feel guilty because you’re leaving people behind that have to suffer and there's nothing that you can do about it. And it's heartbreaking. No one deserves to die in prison from COVID. When there is an order from the attorney general that says if you are a low level, minimum offender that you could be transferred to home confinement. So it makes no sense whatsoever for this not to have been done for everyone.

Chalana's sentiments here pointedly illustrate the long reach of the prison system's failures during the pandemic, such that a person who is no longer incarcerated is still negatively impacted emotionally and psychologically. In essence, she explains that the pains of getting out are comparable in some ways to the pains of being in (see also Warr, 2016). Later in the findings, we discuss the distress that relatives of incarcerated individuals experienced due to facilities’ actions (and inactions) during the pandemic.

Reflections on Institutional Failures and Mistrust During the Pandemic

All narratives included vivid descriptions of how the facilities failed to keep the individuals safe and healthy. When addressing safety measures, the speakers either discussed the total absence of precautions or the ineffectiveness and counterproductivity of facilities’ responses. For example, Jennifer made a stark observation about the nominal safety measures and the lack of confidence in the facility's healthcare provision: “Preventative medicine is not their forté. You must be almost dead before actually receiving care.” Others spoke of the virtual impossibility of social distancing, minimal space for quarantining, few PPE supplies, and lack of frequent testing. Bruce stated:

The prison has tried to distance us. … They’re disinfecting common areas, too; they’re using bleach [in] the gym and on the yard. But what difference does that make when they bring people who were diagnosed with COVID back from the hospital just because they are feeling better? They aren’t retested to see if they are still carrying the virus. And what difference does it make when the guards don’t wear masks?

Charles echoed this issue regarding cramped spaces and no testing that made the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility feel like a “Petri dish”:

They put me in a dorm [for] 100 men, 50 men on each side. Double stack bunks less than three feet apart, you can literally lay down and touch the next bunk. In the beginning, it was mostly about [us] trying to clean the place … But when the time came for cleaning, we lacked cleaning supplies. … Guys starting to come in from [prisons] that were known cases. And we would ask them, “Hey, were you tested when you came in?” like “Nope, nothing.” … Nobody was getting tested. It didn’t matter if you had full-blown symptoms, they wouldn’t test you.

James and Jennifer commented on the futility of the facilities’ guidelines on social distancing and efforts to separate sick individuals from the general population:

After we got our results, the prison decided to separate people who tested positive from people who did not have the virus. But that didn’t last very long, because the staff were trying to make the moves on their computers instead of in person. Lines got crossed. They made mistakes. Inevitably, positive prisoners got mixed together with negative ones. (James)

[A doctor] instructed us to keep our hands and throats washed, even if it meant gargling with soap. She also suggested we keep our faces covered with a mask made out of toilet paper. … We thought it was ridiculous. Soon after, [the] prison started socially distancing us. … But I sleep in an open dorm with 78 beds, eight showers, 12 toilets and eight sinks. Our bunks are only two feet apart, side by side. I asked if we could sleep head-to-toe to make some distance, and the answer was “not yet.” What are they waiting for? (Jennifer)

Some narratives depicted how individuals felt neglected and mistreated by staff and administration when they were most vulnerable. For example, James talked about how the institutional failures he endured led to feelings of abandonment: “[Some] officers stopped showing up for work. We felt like they had left us to die. … it felt like we were in the basement of a burning house with no way out.” Bruce, demonstrating an experience similar to that of Rufus, recalled feeling dehumanized: “[the guards] act as if WE are the virus. I guess they are conditioned to view incarcerated people as subhuman. There has been no compassion for us.” The sentiment of being subjugated to a less-than-human status is a common reflection by incarcerated individuals in general, as they frequently describe being exposed to inhumane conditions and treatment in jails and prisons (Haney, 2012; Higgins et al., 2022; McGuire & Murdoch, 2022; Western et al., 2021). The effects of such power dynamics and callous displays of authority (both as acts and omissions), often explained in the literature as “a pathology of incarceration itself” (Crane & Pascoe, 2021, p. 315), are exacerbated in the COVID-19 context with the absence of institutional policies and procedures to ensure safety and humanity.

Several narratives discussed a significant collateral consequence of preventative measures: lack of contact and connection to their loved ones on the outside. Although correctional facilities may have been well-meaning in their visitation restrictions to slow the spread of the virus (Maycock, 2022; Rabuy & Bertram, 2020; Van Ness, 2021), the intensified forced estrangement deepened misery for the incarcerated. Both Bruce and Ronnie described limited or blocked access to phone calls and other communication methods:

We are literally piled on top of each other trying to get outside so we can get on a phone. There are 22 phones in the yard — often fewer because some don’t work. There are 88 men per gallery with eight galleries going outside at the same time. If you are not in one of the galleries called first, the chances of you being able to call your family are slim to none. I am able to get to a phone about every three weeks. (Bruce)

It was close to two months before my wife realized I had corona. They turned the phones off, so no one could talk to their family. The minute they found out that we were going into quarantine, they turned the phone and computers off, so you [couldn’t] email them or call them. (Ronnie)

Bruce described the same occurrence in the facility where he was incarcerated, and he reflected on the devastation that restricted communication caused:

People whose family members have been hospitalized for COVID don’t get special [phone] access. When an incarcerated person has a civil proceeding, they conduct parts of it via video conference. But [they] can’t connect with their dying mother via the same system. A friend in the cell next to me had to literally argue with social workers [for a call] … Eventually the prison agreed to let him have a video visit. But right after he found out, he got another call to say his mom died.

Other descriptions went beyond facility-level failures to reflect upon the general inequity of the criminal legal process that was multiplied by the pandemic, which created even more profound mistrust. For example, Chalana spoke of the entirely preventable passing of a peer that was caused by punitiveness at the system level:

[She was] from my hometown. And then I found out that on July 15, she was hospitalized with COVID. We heard a rumor that she was placed on a ventilator. … And she passed away at the hospital at the age of 36. And now her two boys will grow up without a mother who was in prison for tax fraud. And I don’t know what country in the world that tax fraud should turn into a death sentence. But it sure shouldn’t be this one.

Doing COVID-19 Time Together: Experiences Outside the Prison

Another important topic within the COVID and prisons context is the effect on families, and two narratives examined in the current study reflected on this outcome. Extensive research has shown that a person's incarceration can negatively impact their families and communities (Arditti et al., 2004; Braman, 2007; Clear, 2007; Comfort, 2003, 2007; DeHart et al., 2018; Tadros et al., 2022; Wildeman & Wakefield, 2014). For example, Comfort (2007) offered one of the most vivid ethnographies capturing the long reach of incarceration in Doing Time Together. Her work focused on women with incarcerated partners and illustrated how prison rules influence and intrude upon their daily lives. The women became substantially enmeshed in prison culture and control by virtue of their commitment to love and support their partners, and they ultimately acquired what comfort calls a “quasi-inmate” status—or secondary prisonization.

Accounts from a mother (Shonda) and a wife (Chazidy) of incarcerated individuals demonstrated a similar pattern—but with the especially harsh addition of uncertainty and fear related to the pandemic. Chazidy is married to Rufus, who was interviewed by phone while incarcerated, and his statements are together with Chazidy's in one recording. The Vera team included a poignant reminder of Rufus's circumstances at the beginning of his interview: “This call is originating from an Ohio correctional facility and may be recorded and monitored.” In their narratives, the women detailed how their well-being was negatively impacted by the potential for their loved ones to become gravely ill amidst system-wide mismanagement and neglect.

Abject Fear

Both women described constant angst once they saw news reports of the virus' rapid spread in correctional facilities. For example, Shonda spoke about her sadness during her son Isiah's incarceration in the early weeks of the pandemic:

I cry every day. Every day I cry. I cry when I open my eyes every morning, tears roll down my eyes. I think, is this really real? My child is in [the] belly of the beast, that's what I call it. And so I’m just trying to keep him afloat as much as possible, keep him sane, because he has no hope. They’ve given him no hope for his future.

Chazidy also reflected on her persistent distress thinking about her husband, Rufus, and the helplessness she felt on the outside:

All the hours, the sleepless nights, the stress, the worry. It's like screaming in the middle of a crowd that is quiet and nobody can hear you. Nobody. And you’re screaming as loud as you can. And there's so many people around you, and nobody can hear you.

Fear about the seriousness of the pandemic, however, pushed them to acquire as much information as possible to advise their loved ones on ways to stay safe. For instance, Chazidy recounted her tips to Rufus to stay safe: “When you go to commissary, buy all the vitamins that you can get. Buy as much soap as you possibly can get. We were basically stockpiling what we could because things were so uncertain.” Shonda, too, felt compelled to give safety advice to her son, especially because she is a registered nurse. She said:

He wasn’t able to see the news, to see the devastation that it was wreaking on our country. So I had to really insist. … I let him know that he needs to take every precaution that he needs to, as far as when he's using the phone, because the phone is a high touch surface. I had to tell him to take a sock and put it over the phone, just to try somehow to make a barrier.

Changes in Daily Life and Tough Decisions

Shonda explained that she had to be prepared to speak with Isiah at a moment's notice, even though it conflicted with her other pressing responsibilities. She needed to support her son:

It's a lot to have to work a full-time job. Now with the COVID, there's extra responsibilities for the facility I work at. So trying to keep the video visits going, the phone calls, reaching out to his lawyers. I oversee care for his two children. And on top of that, I have a sick father that I take care of. I have let my boss know, if my son calls while I’m at work, unless I’m in an emergency, I’m going to take that call. Just so that I can give him some sense of security. And it always secures my mind too, to know that I heard his voice that day and that he's okay.

She also described how she struggled with deciding whether Isiah should be removed from solitary confinement and whether to prioritize his psychological or physical health. Shonda stated:

In the beginning, I didn’t know if I wanted to advocate for him, to have him released back into general population. But as a mother, I knew what solitary confinement can do … So I was battling it back and forth. Do I call the prison, advocate for my son's mental status needs? Or do I have him sit in solitary confinement so that he's safe from the pandemic?

Hope Versus Hopelessness

Both women described their overall outlook on their family members’ health and continued incarceration, as neither was eligible for compassionate release. Shonda's description of her outlook exhibited despondency and frustration, and reflected her heightened mistrust of the criminal legal process:

The system is exhausting. So then you add COVID on top of it. You want to help them. You want to save them. You want to do everything you can. How does a mother sit and watch their child, every day, suffer? And the system expects me to do that for 36 years.

In contrast, Chazidy's description of her outlook exhibited cautious optimism due to her commitment to advocating for Rufus and similarly situated individuals who faced systemic neglect during the pandemic. Her zeal even pushed her to start a formal advocacy group to improve the conditions in correctional facilities.

The thing that drove me was the passion to see people survive. Because we saw people dying, even when they were telling us they weren’t. So it's really bigger than my husband. It's really bigger than Rufus. It's about humanity. … If I stop, all those that depend on me, they won’t have anybody. I pick myself up, and I keep on fighting. And I tell myself it is worth it. At some point, somebody is going to hear me. So I suck it up, and I keep moving.

Accounts of Positive Coping: Advocacy and Resilience

The narratives recounted the positive coping mechanisms they developed to make it through the height of the pandemic. McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021, p. 529) noted that incarcerated individuals react to deprivations “through collective modes of adaptation [and] work together to make incarceration less painful than it might otherwise be through creative strategies of adaptation and/or resistance.” Just as people made efforts to care for themselves and shared resources to support each other on the outside, the incarcerated individuals similarly implemented useful adaptations to the new “normal.” For example, James spoke about his peers using faith in their small groups: “Some of the guys began having prayer circles. They would get in a circle and hold hands and pray to God.” James also described how he and others tried to advocate for themselves by getting outside attention to their plight:

Sometimes I’d talk with the other guys about what we could do to let people know about our conditions. We’d see on the news that our prison was the number one hot spot in the country. We started sending out videos showing the conditions. We told our loved ones to share our stories on social media.

Ronnie explained how he and his group were compelled to help each other when they did not get staff attention. He also personally benefited from his peers’ help when they seemed like the only ones who cared about his health and wellness during a bout with COVID:

After about the third day, we realized we weren’t going to get the medical attention that we needed. We kind of huddled up and took care of each other. [When I was sick], other inmates would come by and say, “Mr. Lauderdale, you need to move around.” I just couldn’t. … Finally one of them came and [said], “I’m no doctor but they say we got to keep moving.” So he walked me down. You know, we had to take care of ourselves. He would come by every morning and walk me down the hall and walk me back.

Bruce discussed the ways that he and his peers shared positive thoughts and paid close attention to each other's emotional well-being, akin to a familial bond:

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been knocking on the wall each night to check on Francisco. You never know what a person's history is and what they are thinking in those dark moments. … We try to console each other by listening. … At the end of the day, people in prison only have each other. We often build real bonds. We have friendships that matter. I try to be a light in a dark place. Prison is a cold environment. It's up to us to create our own heat.

Charles described how self-advocacy turned into helping his peers. His efforts at bringing attention to institutional neglect even resulted in a legal victory against the detention facility:

I took it upon myself to start making a list of all those with medical issues that made them susceptible to severe [cases]. I had to go bunk to bunk and talk to people individually, and then I got a buddy of mine to translate. [I] came up with 40 guys [with] respiratory issues or cardiac issues. … I was part of the class action. They said that ICE is not equipped to stop COVID-19 from spreading. And because of my asthma, that makes me susceptible. … Sue ICE, you know? And I was released.

Furthermore, some of the incarcerated individuals spoke of the changes in their mindset that assisted with managing stress, fear, and uncertainty. Jennifer's narrative ended with a keen reflection demonstrating her revised thought process: “I have had to learn to mature and cope under serious adverse circumstances in an extremely hostile environment. I will not lie: This has not been an easy road, but I understand that it is not intended to be.”

Even within a period of near-incalculable difficulties, incarcerated individuals actively engaged in helping behaviors and established prosocial outlets to cope during the pandemic. The social support exchanged during this time assuaged some physical and emotional distress (e.g., Ronnie's peer helping him move around in the absence of consistent medical care), thereby partially attenuating losses of security experienced due to staff neglect and institutional failures. The social support described in the narratives also propelled some individuals into leadership roles within a demoralizing environment (e.g., Charles's legal advocacy in the immigration detention facility), thereby lessening (to a certain extent) losses of autonomy experienced when administration failed to consider individuals’ concerns about overcrowding and demands for humane treatment. Empowerment was also reflected beyond the incarcerated individuals, with Chazidy focusing on her nonprofit advocacy organization.

Discussion and Implications

The narratives of incarcerated survivors of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed four major themes: distress, institutional failures, familial pains, and adaptations to deprivation in the form of advocacy and resilience. The data contain vivid descriptions of physical and emotional distress, which are closely connected to Sykes’ (1958) “pains of imprisonment.” These accounts of negative emotions and health complications related to both deprivation of liberty (e.g., extreme isolation in solitary and quarantine, further limiting contact with the outside world that they had before) and deprivation of security (e.g., physical and psychological safety taken away at their most vulnerable points). By demonstrating this parallel, this research contributes to the growing body of literature that extends and expands Sykes’ (1958) original framework (Crewe, 2011; Edgemon & Clay-Warner, 2019; Haggerty & Bucerius, 2020; Suhomlinova et al., 2022).

Our findings shed light on the gross mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant institutional failures in our nation's prisons and jails. The first-person accounts of what it was like to fear for one's life and those around them provide insight into both the abject suffering that was not reported by prison administrators as well as the intensified system mistrust that developed during this period. In fact, as outlined previously, administrators were not forthcoming with information on prison and jail infection rates or deaths. Such omissions further damaged the legitimacy of the criminal legal system by incarcerated individuals and their loved ones—and even the public at large. We are grateful to social justice agencies like the Vera Institute of Justice and The Marshall Project for spotlighting the epidemic within the pandemic, which gave voices to the silenced. We encourage other social justice organizations to do the same, and we hope that more scholars will embark upon person-centered research that is impactful.

Some of the stories encapsulated the anguish of individuals with incarcerated relatives and demonstrated how incarceration produces collateral consequences on loved ones. In this way, our research brings attention to the phenomenon of being “outside-in,” which illustrates the long reach of incarceration beyond the walls and barbed wire of prisons and jails (Testa & Fahmy, 2021). It also focuses on mass incarceration's emotional toll on mothers and wives, just as Comfort (2007) recounted in her work. Other narratives, including that of Charles, who was detained in an ICE facility, speak to the strength and resilience of incarcerated survivors. Their positive coping mechanisms—in the form of self- and peer motivation as well as advocacy—reflect individuals’ “creative strategies of adaptation and/or resistance” amid severe deprivations, and represent empowerment in power-depleting circumstances.

Implications of the Findings

The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the most extensive human rights and public health crises in the nation's prisons (Beichner et al., 2021; Penal Reform International, 2020). There are several implications associated with our research findings. First, we honor and acknowledge the lives lost and the families who have suffered because of COVID-19. In doing so, we urge prison administrators and policymakers to keep system-impacted people at the center of the reform movement (Beichner & Hagemann, 2022; Beichner et al., 2021; Birgin et al., 2022; Sentencing Project, 2022). It is imperative that we seek the insight of people in our prisons and jails when developing policies and practices that impact their day-to-day lives. They are the ones who have suffered the most and witnessed the shortcomings of past strategies directly. We endorse the “Survivor Criminology” approach developed by Cook et al. (2022) and believe that the lived experiences of survivors should inform all policies in the criminal legal system—including those in prisons and jails.

Next, we must prioritize decarceration by increasing compassionate release and implementing alternatives to incarceration for low-level, nonviolent offenses. In the midst of the pandemic, we witnessed compassionate release as a means of decreasing prison populations and reducing deaths (Beichner et al., 2021; Nowotny et al., 2020; Widra & Hayre, 2020). We must use this as a long-term strategy to reduce mass incarceration (Beichner & Hagemann, 2022). Third, we must speed up access to preventative health measures for the vulnerable populations in prisons and jails. The COVID-19 virus proves to be a long-lasting part of our world. Moreover, as contagious diseases continue to become more common worldwide, we must recognize that there will be additional threats beyond the coronavirus (Park et al., 2021; Park & Meagher, 2020). Lastly, knowing that prison and jail populations contain disproportionate numbers of people who are immunocompromised and elderly, we must take action to improve medical care and access to services. We must also dismantle the sentencing policies, such as mandatory minimums, that contribute to the persistence of mass incarceration and aging prison populations.

Limitations and Future Research

There are two main shortcomings of the study. First, we did not directly speak with the individuals for whom we provided narratives; thus, we can only infer what meanings they described. Second, because data included the experiences of only 10 individuals in just seven states, the study's findings cannot be generalized to the experiences of incarcerated persons in every state.

Furthermore, although we do not know the methodology and selection process used by the staff at The Marshall Project and the Vera Institute of Justice in selecting participants, we would be remiss to overlook the racial makeup of the narrators, who are predominately Black. A larger sample size that allows for comparisons across racial and ethnic groups would be valuable in assessing how the pandemic intersects with a dysfunctional justice system that disproportionately affects minorities (Akiyama et al., 2020; Berk et al., 2021; Carissimo, 2020; Eisen, 2015; Morens et al., 2020). Based on existing research, we would expect that such an evaluation may correspond with what Davis (2006) describes as the “racialization of punishment” in the American criminal legal system and also help to illustrate how the COVID-19 pandemic has reified disparities based on race and ethnicity (Beichner et al., 2021; Denney & Valdez, 2021; Yearby et al., 2022).

Notwithstanding these limitations, this exploratory study brings to light the voices of those who—because of the enhanced vulnerabilities produced by incarceration—suffered the most during the pandemic. Also, because we relied on existing narratives, we did not evoke additional traumas or produce additional emotional distress to individuals who suffered during the pandemic. The study provides the groundwork for future research that centers on in-depth interviews with affected persons in other states. We urge researchers to use trauma-informed methodologies, as recalling past traumatic events will undoubtedly bring about emotional distress in those who witnessed the direct effects of the pandemic.

Author Biographies

Miltonette Olivia Craig, JD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University. She completed her JD at Georgia State University and PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. Her research interests include courts and sentencing, gender and crime, and racial disparities in policing outcomes, such as traffic stops, citizen complaints, and excessive use of force.

Mijin Kim, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. She completed her PhD in Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her research focuses on policies and practices in prisons and jails, specifically in identifying institutional problems to understand how confinement conditions impact inmate behavior in prison and post-release.

Dawn Beichner-Thomas, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. She completed her PhD in Criminal Justice Sciences at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her research interests include victimology, incarcerated women, and reentry. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Society of Victimology and serves as a liaison to the United Nations.