The conversation
No visits and rare calls – pandemic makes divorce even more frightening for people with a family member in jail
A Texas woman shows a photo of her 21-year-old son who was locked up during the pandemic. AP Photo / LM Otero Prisons and prisons in the United States have had a coronavirus infection rate that was three times greater than the general population, with an average of 1,400 new COVID-19 infections and seven deaths each day over the past year. America’s correctional facilities are notorious for spreading infectious diseases. Millions of people cycle in and out of them every year, and they have limited medical staff and necessities. People in prison also spend long periods in crowded indoor spaces, with poor air circulation and ventilation. For many people who are locked up, whether they are waiting in jail or sitting in jail after being convicted, it is terrifying in a pandemic place. And for the 6.5 million Americans who have locked up a family member, COVID-19 has exacerbated an already very stressful situation, according to our criminological research. During the summer of 2020, we interviewed more than 500 people who locked up a family member in Texas – a state with the country’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks in correctional facilities. Nearly 200 have made personal statements about the need to lock up a loved one during the pandemic. People expressed deep concern about the conditions of their family member and struggled to cope with new pandemic restrictions on visits and other communication. Many feared that their family member of COVID-19 would die in prison alone – as 2,564 prisoners in the United States have done. ‘We do not sit up, we torture’ With more than 34,000 positive COVID-19 cases so far in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, infection rates in Texas prisons are 40% higher than the average prison population. Texas recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths of inmates nationwide: 187 deaths on April 16, 2021. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, based in Huntsville, has nearly 100 detention facilities, including 50 state prisons and dozens. of prisons. Chantal Valery / AFP via Getty Images Our study participants were part of the Texas Inmate Family Association, a nonprofit organization that provides support to people with family locked up in the state. The survey was conducted anonymously, and we contain only limited personal information about the respondents and their family members here and have not confirmed their allegations. Our survey showed that people with a family member who was locked up during the pandemic experienced extreme distress. Seventy-nine percent were very worried that their beloved COVID-19 would get in jail. The vast majority were women with a prisoner in a child or spouse. “My son has been locked up in a cell with a temperature of more than 100 degrees for weeks now, because it has been here for weeks on end because of COVID,” a 74-year-old woman living near San Marcos told us. “I’m afraid he’s going to perish under the circumstances or somehow take his own life.” Many Texas prisons do not have masks, soap and hand sanitizer. Yet family may not bring disinfectants into prisons: they are considered smuggling in federal prisons and state prisons in more than a dozen states. One father compared the conditions his child experienced in prison to a ‘concentration camp’. Even before the pandemic, a mother told us that a child in prison was stressed because of ‘the disregard of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system, in general, for the well-being and rehabilitation of the inmates. Living conditions are deplorable, the food is not nutritious, dental and medical care is too difficult to obtain, [and] there are too many extensive closures. “We are not sitting, but we are torturing,” she said. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has been sued in the past for jail conditions and more recently for coronavirus policies and practices. ‘We lost a part of us’ Capturing family members always physically separate from each other; it is part of the punishment. And during COVID-19, it’s a particularly severe punishment. The Robertson Unit’s maximum security prison, outside Abilene, Texas. Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images) A woman in San Antonio told us, “The hardest part of this pandemic is not having my husband by my side.” Her husband has been locked up for 11 years. In prisons in Texas, all kinds of contact with the outside world – including video and phone calls – were severely restricted and visits were completely banned on March 13, 2020 when Government Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster. This included youth facilities. ‘Phones were deactivated during COVID and [the] few calls are just 5 minutes, ”said a Houston woman whose son was locked up in Huntsville Jail in Texas. “It’s all so difficult with prisoners, but so difficult for families.” Texas reopened prisons and jails for visits on March 15, 2021. But the separation would have already taken a high toll on intimate intimate relationships, our research shows. “We have lost part of our divorce for so long. We are not the same people, ”said one 49-year-old woman last summer, whose captive fiancée could not communicate with her. “My fiancé has lost hope and struggles, and it breaks my heart.” ‘Sick worried’ As criminologists studying the consequences of imprisonment for health, we know that concerns about the well-being of a captive loved one are a common and serious stress. Studies show that detaining a family member is detrimental to the psychological and physical health of parents, spouses and children. The stress of knowing that a captive family member could become ill with a deadly virus contributes to the existing fear that they will be abused or assaulted in prison. Several relatives of the people we interviewed have indeed contracted COVID-19. One woman, whose husband recently tested positive, said she struggled to get in touch with nurses to keep her informed of his condition. “I’m sick worried,” she said. [Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.] Some people said they were kept in the dark about the illness of their family member. “I only found out a few weeks later that he had contracted COVID-19,” said a woman of her husband. “He was locked up and could not call home.” This article was published from The Conversation, a non-profit news site sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Alexander Testa, University of Texas at San Antonio and Chantal Fahmy, University of Texas at San Antonio. Read more: Prisons and prisons are epicenters for coronavirus – but they were once designed to prevent disease outbreaks. As the coronavirus rages in prisons, ethical issues of crime and punishment become more compelling. Alexander Testa receives funding from Aging Research in Criminal Justice Health Network (ARCH), National Institutes of Health, and Bureau of Justice Assistance Chantal Fahmy has received funding from the Aging Research in Criminal Justice Health (ARCH) Network, National Institutes of Health and from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice.