PrisonPandemic: A Unique and Sizable Collection of Stories by Incarcerated People on Pandemic Conditions

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

PrisonPandemic provides one of the first discoverable and ethical sources of knowledge about how incarcerated people experienced the COVID-19 crisis. Between the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2023, we collected almost 5,000 stories from a total of 140 California facilities (including all 34 state prisons, jails in most of the state’s 58 counties, as well as federal prisons and immigration detention facilities based in the state). The materials represent a unique, modern, and sizable collection of stories from inside prisons – stories that are rarely described and preserved to the extent planned in this collection. The small, yet significant, details of prison life – expressed through the testimony, prose, poetry, drawings, and recorded audio found in this collection – provide rare insight into one of our society’s greatest modern tragedies and how people caught in this tragedy made meaning of their lives and experiences. In this panel, team members will discuss the ethical frameworks used to design collection and preservation practices, constructing sampling frames inclusive of incarcerated people, and social responsibility practiced during the pandemic. This discussion will be led by two community practitioners, both long-standing organizers in criminal justice reform. This panel is connected to the PrisonPandemic prison phone exhibit.

Sub Unit

• Area VI. The Criminal Justice System / 46. Jails & Prisons

Individual Presentations

• Metabolizing Risk as Prison Researchers: Navigating the Ethics of Engaging Criminalized Voices - Joanne DeCaro, University of California, Irvine; Alexis Rowland, University of California, Irvine; Keramet Reiter, University of California, Irvine

• When the Numbers Speak: Pain of Imprisonment, Coping, Recovery, And Social Responsibility - Gabe Rosales, University of California, Irvine

• Reaching Incarcerated People in Jail: The Case of PrisonPandemic - Alexis Rowland, University of California, Irvine; Naomi F. Sugie, University of California, Irvine; Kristin Turney, University of California, Irvine

Chair

• Lee Gibson, Initiate Justice

Discussant

• Shawn Khalifa, University of California, Irvine