Shared Sorrow: Navigating Mass Grief in Incarceration

• In Event: The Physical and Mental Health Impacts of Incarceration

Abstract

Within the context of the small communities that develop in prison, the deaths of individuals integral to these communities echo heavily within the institution, resulting in mass grief. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 58 men imprisoned for the duration of the pandemic in an institution where over a dozen men died in a very short time. Mass grief is used to describe the collective sorrow, loss, and sadness characterizing the experiences of the survivors. While grieving in prison is often complicated and repressed at the individual level, bereavement may take a different form when experienced collectively within a prison society.

Authors

• Veronica L. Horowitz, University at Buffalo, SUNY

• Synøve Andersen, University of Oslo

• Jordan Hyatt, Drexel University

• Sirat Kaur, University at Buffalo, SUNY