PUBLISHED PAPERS
Incarcerated During a Pandemic: Implications of COVID-19 for Jailed Individuals and Their Families
U.S. jails are typically over-crowded settings and have faced notable social distancing challenges and a lack of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, institutions made swift policy changes that included canceling in-person visits, suspending programming, and releasing a proportion of people with low level charges. That said, a still-significant number of individuals remained incarcerated for whom the consequences of such abrupt procedural changes amidst an ongoing pandemic remain largely unknown. To begin to examine this, 33 adults in a mid-sized, county jail were surveyed to assess their experiences. Participants were majority Black men, half of whom were parents, and all had been tested for COVID-19. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected yielding results, which indicated that COVID-19 significantly disrupted daily jail activities, adversely influenced health, and strained family relationships. Use of segregation, delayed court proceedings, inadequate health responses, and suspended programming and visits with limited contact alternatives reportedly intersected with depleted mental health to contribute to feelings of isolation and heightened concern for the well-being of family. Policy and practice implications are discussed that would help incarcerated people receive necessary support and maintain family connections while mitigating health concerns that emerge during public health crises. continue reading.
Mapping prison proliferation: Region, rurality, race and disadvantage in prison placement
Perhaps the leading perspective on how and where prisons are located stems from the perspective of the prison industrial complex (PIC). Implicit, if not explicit, in the PIC perspective is the notion that Black and Hispanic prisoners are exploited for the benefit of poor, unemployed, White prison towns. Unfortunately, however, there has been a shortage of empirical scrutiny of this central notion. This paper examines this claim with a rare event logistic regression analysis of 176 new prison placements across 13,155 rural places in the 1990s in the US. In contrast to the PIC perspective, prison towns are disproportionately southern and poor, and have a larger population with a greater share of Blacks and Hispanics. The analysis yields three further challenges to the PIC perspective on prison towns. First, findings suggest rural prison placement does not cause racial and economic inequality as much as prison siting results from concentrated rural disadvantage. Second, there is not one prototypical prison town. Instead, there are typologies of prison towns based on US region, race, town population size, race, prior proximate prison, and SES. Lastly, future studies should consider the theoretical and methodological implications of rural concentrated disadvantage in measuring prison impact. continue reading.
The impact of carceral churn and healthcare organizations on HIV/AIDS incidence in Arkansas
Beginning in the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic plagued the United States for over two decades. In addition to the alarming racial disparities in HIV/AIDS deaths and diagnoses, whereby African Americans compose over 40% of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020), HIV/AIDS remains a major public health crisis in this country, albeit with significant regional variation. The South suffers from more HIV/AIDS diagnoses and deaths than any other U.S. region. Southeastern rural communities, foremost the Mississippi Delta, have disproportionately high rates of HIV/AIDS (Hall et al., 2006). As the HIV/AIDS epidemic took hold, another major societal trend also swept the U.S.: mass incarceration. Counties that have high incarceration rates also have higher rates of HIV/AIDS (Henderson, 2016). continue reading.
Black mothers’ school-selection decision-making
As school choice policies continue to become more prevalent nationally and internationally, educational scholars are interested in understanding how parents make school selection decisions. Existing studies of parental educational decision-making mainly explore how white, middle-class parents make educational decisions. There is limited research on the criteria Black parents, specifically Black mothers, prioritize when selecting schools for their children. This study draws on in-depth interviews with five Black mothers to explore the factors they consider when choosing schools for their elementary-aged children within a school choice context. Findings show Black mothers in this study prioritize factors to protect their children from racism and prepare them for racist practices embedded in American institutions and society. continue reading.
Pushing them to the edge: Suicide in immigrant detention centers as a product of organizational failure
In this paper, we argue that the U.S. immigrant apparatus is a racial project that jeopardizes immigrants’ wellbeing through organizational failure (Omi and Winant, 2014; Meyer & Rowman, 1977; Mellahi and Wilkinson, 2004). We utilize Provine and Doty’s (2011) work as a foundation to understand how this racial project is systemic and multifaceted in nature. It begins with the negative characterization and criminalization of certain immigrants, mostly Latinx, followed by a poor infrastructure of processing and detention riddled with impediments to their wellbeing, which ultimately pushes detainees to the edge, to poor mental health, and suicidality. ICE’s system of detention consistently operates poorly and normalizes organizational failure, jeopardizing immigrant lives through basic human rights violations, family separation, substandard living conditions, and minimal consideration to poor mental health, suicide prevention, and prompt and adequate intervention. Utilizing qualitative data from ICE inspection reports, contracts, and detainee death reports, we examine suicide policies across 116 detention facilities in the United States to highlight how detention facilities supervised by ICE unsuccessfully prevents detainee suicide due to organizational failure. Under ICE’s oversight, facilities are inadequately staffed and resourced, resulting in the failure to implement federally mandated protocols regarding detainees’ well-being competently and promptly. continue reading.
Contending with Carcerality: Discursive Resistance to Elite Appropriation of Antiviolence Activism in Indian Media
Research has revealed how antiviolence activism can become entangled with the state’s punitive agenda, leading to what some have called “carceral feminism.” However, this scholarship focuses primarily on the U.S. context. Additionally, few studies examine the cultural battles about gender-based violence that emerge in television media, a site of cultural struggle and meaning making. This study conducts a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 46 Indian television panel broadcasts following a highly publicized rape in New Delhi in 2012. I find that elite state actors pursue punitive agendas, but feminists and other panelists engage in discursive resistance to this approach. continue reading.