The Impact of COVID-19 on Justice-Involved African Americans

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the impact of COVID-19 on justice-involved African Americans during incarceration and post-release. The study population comprised 25 African American men and women recently released from prison. A qualitative phenomenological approach was employed, and the reflexive thematic analysis process was utilized. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted and imported into NVivo 11 qualitative research software. The analysis revealed four major themes: stress, reentry, substance use, and community adjustment. The findings implied a need for (1) policy creation and revision to prepare jails and prisons for public health crises; (2) more realistic post-release coping strategies to prepare individuals to face post-release obstacles, such as COVID-19, housing, employment, relapse, and social reintegration; (3) improvements in data collection and transparency in disseminating such data to enhance healthcare services in jails and prisons; and (4) additional evidence-based research to address current concerns with data availability, misreporting, reporting delays, testing rate differences, and inconsistencies in population estimates.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• Justice-involved African Americans
• incarceration
• post-release barriers
• community-based rehabilitation
• criminal justice policy

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Tarcel King, MSW, a social worker at the agency, for assisting with recruitment and helping the participants navigate the technology.

(To protect the identity of the participants, I did not include the name of the agency/affiliation. Tarcel works with several agencies; therefore, the readers will not be able to connect her to a specific agency which further protects the participant’s identity).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).