“Worst experience in my life”: Conditions of Confinement in Incarcerated Settings During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168231193026
• Author: Chase L. Montagnet,Julia C. Bowling,Anthony M. Azari,Colleen M. Berryessa
• Date: 01 June 2024

“Worst experience in my life”:

Conditions of Conf‌inement in

Incarcerated Settings During

the COVID-19 Pandemic

Chase L. Montagnet

1

, Julia C. Bowling

1

,

Anthony M. Azari

1

, and Colleen M. Berryessa

1

Abstract

Much is unknown about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the carceral experience.

Firsthand accounts, however, can illuminate how the virus traveled through correctional institutions

and how operational changes intended to mitigate virus transmission altered dailylife for incarcer-

ated people. Analyzing semi-structured interviews with 53 individuals released from state prisons,

county jails, and halfway houses in a northeastern U.S. state between October 2020 and June 2021,

this study explores the shifting conditions of conf‌inement in the early months of the pandemic, as

well as how incarcerated individuals experienced the pandemic in terms of their mental and physical

health, safety, and trust in correctional institutions. Interviewees described the spread of COVID-19

in correctional environments and how it led to several pandemic-related changes, such as stoppages

or adjustments to programs, visits, recreation time, and movement around the facility. The data ulti-

mately suggest that pandemic lockdown measures, instituted to prevent virus transmission, led to

environments akin to solitary conf‌inement and compromised the ability of incarcerated individuals

to connect with loved ones, exacerbated their fears about contracting the virus,and further eroded

their trust in correctional institutions.

Keywords

incarceration, corrections, COVID-19, solitary conf‌inement, qualitative methods

Introduction

Correctional institutions maintain that their primary purpose is to incapacitate individuals as they

serve their sentence, as well as maintain safety, security, and order throughout institutions (Pont

et al., 2018). Yet, when the state incarcerates an individual, the state is also legally required to

provide healthcare and protect them from harm (American Bar Association, 2011). Although

1

School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Chase L. Montagnet, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, 123 Washington Street, 5th Floor, Newark,NJ 07102,

USA.

Email: clm324@rutgers.edu

Article

Criminal Justice Review

2024, Vol. 49(2) 267-285

© 2023 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168231193026

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

correctional healthcare has improved since the 1976 Supreme Court ruling in Estelle v. Gamble,

which established that failure to provide medical care in prison was not necessarily a violation of

the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment (see Allen et al., 2010), health-

care still likely takes a more secondary role to maintaining institutional order and security. Indeed,

given the extensive research highlighting the detrimental effects that incarceration can have on one’s

health (for a review see Massoglia & Pridemore, 2015), it is unsurprising that the COVID-19 pan-

demic has brought the conf‌lict between healthcare and correctional management even further to

light—particularly surrounding the negative health effects of solitary conf‌inement in correctional set-

tings (Haney, 2018a, 2018b; Haney et al., 2016).

This study, using data from 53 interviews with individuals who were incarcerated during the

COVID-19 pandemic in a northeastern state, highlights how COVID-19 drastically changed the con-

ditions of conf‌inement in correctional facilities. In an effort to follow the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention (CDC) guidance on social distancing, correctional institutions appeared to rely on

what they knew best: prison management. As a result, entire populations of incarcerated individuals

were subjected to conditions similar to those of solitary conf‌inement, which appeared to affect their

mental and physical health, safety in, and trust of correctional institutions. Ultimately, the current

study draws a parallel between the conditions of conf‌inement during the COVID-19 pandemic

and solitary conf‌inement, as well as highlights the potential downstream consequences that these

changes may have had to both those incarcerated during this time and the families and communities

to which they returned.

Solitary Conf‌inement in Incarcerated Settings

The def‌inition of solitary conf‌inement—sometimes referred to as the hole, the box, the SHU (an

abbreviation of Security Housing Unit), isolation, restrictive housing, or segregation (Sakoda &

Simes, 2021)—varies across jurisdictions. While generally def‌ined as restricting an individual to

their prison cell for 22 hr or more per day and isolating them from the main body of people incar-

cerated in the prison facility (hereafter “the general population”), solitary conf‌inement is more

than just the amount of time an individual is held in their cell (Haney, 2018b). In fact, social isolation

is just one of the three components integral to solitary conf‌inement. The other two are (1) reduced

activity and environmental stimuli, as well as (2) loss of autonomy and control (Shalev, 2014).

Individuals in solitary conf‌inement generally have limited, if any, access to programming, recreation

time, commissary supplies, phone calls, and visitation. These additional restrictions placed on incar-

cerated individuals have led to some researchers to refer to solitary conf‌inement as “prisons within

prisons”(Browne et al., 2011).

According to Labrecque (2016), solitary conf‌inement has four purposes: (1) responding to serious

misconduct, (2) maintaining order within the facility, (3) protecting an incarcerated individual from

harm, and (4) meeting other ad hoc institutional needs. Each of these distinct purposes maps onto the

different types of solitary conf‌inement: (1) disciplinary segregation, (2) administrative segregation,

(3) protective segregation/custody, and (4) temporary/de facto segregation, respectively. Disciplinary

segregation is used for punishment for individuals who violate institutional rules, and there is evi-

dence it is used liberally in response to minor rule infractions (Cloud et al., 2015). Administrative

segregation, which is imposed for purposes of institutional safety and security, can be used when

an individual is unable to adjust to life within the general population or when their presence is

believed to pose a disruption to the order of the institution (e.g., gang members or perceived gang

members) (Cloud et al., 2015; Labrecque, 2016).

Protective segregation, also known as protective custody, is used to remove vulnerable individuals

from the general population, such as those with histories of committing self-harm, committing par-

ticular offenses (e.g., sex offenders), types of former employment (e.g., law enforcement), medical

268 Criminal Justice Review 49(2)