HOW COVID-19 AMPLIFIED TRAUMA AND MARGINALIZATION AMONG CARCERAL POPULATIONS: Using the Pandemic Experience to Rethink Incarceration

COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in correctional institutions across the world, and many jurisdictions have taken emergency measures, such as the temporary release of some incarcerated individuals, to combat the pandemic. Such emergency measures are necessary and appropriate. However, the pandemic is an opportunity to tackle more long-standing and difficult questions about mass incarcerations and punitive systems in countries such as the United States, England, and Wales, where fair treatment of incarcerated persons is historically low. In this chapter, we show that social and health inequalities, infection control, and minimal access to information and information technology (IT) have plagued prisons for decades behind closed doors and the COVID-19 pandemic has served to highlight these inequalities to the public. Finally, we posit that the pandemic is an opportunity to rethink the purpose of prisons and whether they can be justified for the incarceration of people who are vulnerable by virtue of their poor health, age, or other social injustices. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis provides the impetus to retheorize the purpose of prisons; refocus efforts on institutional correctional practices that are rehabilitative, progressive, and streamlined; and provide foundational footing for praxis. If approached equitably and ethically, such reform could also address the disparate treatment of marginalized populations.