Racialized Emergencies: COVID-19, Decarceration, and Public Opinion

• In Event: Black Lives, Black Deaths, and Black Protest: Political Scientists Respond (Anew) to a Persistent Challenge: Black Lives Matter and Political Behavior: Public Opinion and Political Participation

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated other illnesses in the American body polity: mass incarceration and racial inequality. As of mid-June, there have been 46,249 cases of the novel coronavirus reported inside prisons and jails. Additionally, 1,623 cases have been reported across 67 immigrant detention centers. The conditions of carceral facilities rapidly accelerate the spread of COVID-19, and incarcerated people and immigrant detainees are disproportionately exposed to risk of infection and death. Given the racialized dimension of the carceral state (Alexander 2010, Lehrman & Weaver 2014, Murakawa 2014), non-White populations -- mainly Black, followed in number by Latinx -- have beared the blunt of the pandemic inside bars.

In this paper, we analyze activist responses to COVID-19 in prisons and immigrant detention centers, and we offer the results of two surveys we conducted that measure views on harm reduction and decarceration.

Activists have responded to this crisis by demanding decarceration policies to reduce the number of people inside prisons, improve conditions inside carceral facilities, and accelerate releases from facilities. Following the calls from criminal justice advocates, our surveys measure support for decarceration and harm-reduction measures. We also embed experiments about the effects of information on (a) racial disparities in jails and prisons, and (b) some of the inadequate health conditions inside immigrant detention centers, in order to measure the causal effects of this information.

We argue that prisoners and immigrant detainees are viewed with less dignity and respect than those outside carceral institutions. Respondents favor mitigating harm towards them, but they do not see COVID-19 as revealing the need to change a flawed system. Information about racial inequality in the carceral system increases support for some short-term solutions to COVID-19, but it does not significantly change preferences for changing the system long-term. COVID-19 is seen as a short-term crisis to overcome, not a signal flare that calls for drastic action to change the system. In support of this, we offer five major results from our analysis.

First, we find that a majority of respondents do not believe carceral institutions should be prioritized in the response to COVID-19; most respondents suggest that incarcerated people and immigrants in detention should not receive the same priority and treatment as those outside these institutions. Second, while respondents largely favor improving conditions inside carceral facilities, they express much more hesitation about decarceration measures.

Third, information about racial disparities in jails and prisons increased support for decarceration policies during the COVID-19 crisis, but this effect is attenuated and insignificant when applied to support for decarceration after the COVID-19 crisis subsides. Fourth, while the racial disparities treatment caused a shift in views, information about poor conditions inside migrant detention centers did not affect views on policy responses to COVID-19 in these institutions. Lastly, Black and Latinx respondents show more support for decarceration than White respondents. All groups in our survey, however, show more reticence to support rapid decarceration than do activist groups organizing towards decarceration and abolition.

Incarcerated individuals and immigrant detainees are disproportionately Black and Latinx people, and our results highlight the lack of concern for their lives. We find that showing racial disparities can change views on incarceration, but this effect is limited to short-term policy responses in light of the pandemic, while views on long-term policy prove to be more durable.

Authors

• Matthew Denney, Yale University

• Ramon Garibaldo Valdez, Yale University