What has been the experience inside prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The effects of COVID-19 across the nation have been devastating, but the impact of the virus has been particularly acute in overcrowded prisons and jails. The epidemic has clear implications for incarcerated individuals and their families, but also for those employed in the state’s prison system.

To develop an understanding of the impact of COVID-19 in prison, we partnered with the California Department of Corrections (CDCR), the California Correctional Health Care Service (CCHCS) and researchers at UC Berkeley and UCSF as part of the California Prison Roadmap for Targeting Efforts to Address the Ecosystem of COVID Transmission (CalPROTECT). 

Between January of 2021 and August of 2021, we conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with staff and residents across California correctional institutions. Largely, these interviews took place during site visits to eight prisons; however, we also had in-depth conversations with executive leadership and correctional officer union representatives via phone or video calls. In all, we engaged in conversations with over 250 individuals, including institutional leadership, supervisors, and frontline staff from medical, nursing, and custody teams, as well as with members of the Inmate Advisory Council (IAC) at each institution.

Not surprisingly, we found that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted or exacerbated problems that were long-standing issues within corrections, including complex communication structures, staffing shortages, and low morale. This made the task of managing the pandemic and curbing effects especially difficult. As one staff member noted: “we felt doomed from the start.”

In many institutions, the COVID-19 pandemic spread quickly, and many staff knew little about how the virus spread or how to curb contagion. Across the system, institutional leadership, supervisors, line staff and residents shared how terrifying the first days and months of the pandemic were. They described the stress and difficulties related to working in a high-risk environment with insufficient and rapidly changing information.

Our work was able to document the experiences inside prison during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our final report documented a wide range of specific recommendations aimed at helping prepare the state prison system for managing future crises of this kind.

This project was made possible with funding from the California Correctional Health Care Service.