How the Pandemic Further Isolated the Incarcerated

The silver handcuffs that encompassed the young Black woman’s wrists restricted her from moving her visibly worn-out mask up her nose. She stated that she had not yet been able to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine and had not been tested in more than two weeks. As an emergency medical technician, Ankita Patil was dispatched to the local prison that was hidden in the corner of the town, and this was her first exposure to the inhumane conditions carceral settings enforce and conceal from the public.

Jails and prisons quickly became a hotspot for COVID-19 and involved the largest and most frequent outbreaks in the United States. The virus spread rapidly through carceral facilities as a result of difficulties in practicing social distancing and adhering to mask mandates, along with a lack of engineering controls (e.g., air conditioning). Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) workplace complaints rose by more than 15% between February and October 2020, with the majority revolving around unacceptable COVID-19 workplace conditions that essential workers had to endure¹ however, this metric did not extend to the voices of incarcerated populations, who have been vital to the functioning of our society but have not received proper protection.

As an occupational health student, Marjorie Naila Segule worked to make people feel safe returning to work and designed interventions to reduce workplace COVID-19 exposures. However, these interventions did not include incarcerated workers who were on the frontlines of the pandemic response working in morgues and cleaning hospital laundries where they were directly exposed to the virus.¹ These workers are often unable to exercise workplace protection and face numerous barriers when filing OSHA complaints. They are further forced to work with little to no pay and can be penalized if they decide to not work.

When the system is allowed to engage in “violent inaction,” incarcerated individuals are left purposefully hidden.² The lack of data transparency in COVID-19 case reports and the personal protective equipment supplied to jails and prisons, coupled with sluggish legislation (e.g., the half-year gap in the tabling of the COVID-19 in Corrections Data Transparency Act), permits carceral facilities to mask the barbaric conditions faced by this vulnerable population. Further human rights violations incarcerated individuals faced during the pandemic (and continue to face) include increased solitary confinement owing to lockdowns,³ canceled in-person visitations, and loss of physical mail from family members as cards were converted to PDFs.⁴

Many of us have seen our communities step up by asking for individuals to be released, advocating for vaccine prioritization, and working to address vaccine hesitancy in incarcerated settings.^5,6 Unfortunately, that is not enough. As public health students, we can aid in fixing this data opacity by mobilizing legislatures to pass the necessary reforms to properly report on the health and well-being of those who are incarcerated and designing the types of oversight needed to hold these carceral facilities accountable. We can further take our message to a global scale to ensure that those who are incarcerated in other countries are given the proper protection and resources to keep them safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although these steps will not be taken immediately and will be met with resistance, we must consistently hold these institutions accountable.

For many, the pandemic illustrated the need to pay more attention to the health of incarcerated individuals given that jails and prisons are a hotspot for infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and that the health of individuals who live and work in these settings can affect those of us who may not enter such facilities. Records on COVID-19 cases and deaths that occurred in carceral facilities have been lacking in quality, have been inaccessible to the public, or have not been updated despite the continuation of the pandemic. The true extent to which the country’s most marginalized population has been affected by the pandemic and the inequities faced by these individuals may never be known.