Pervasive punishment in a pandemic

AuthorBetsy Barkas,Caitlin Gormley,Fergus McNeill,Marguerite Schinkel,Ryan Casey,Neil Cornish
Published date01 December 2021
Date01 December 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/02645505211050871
Subject MatterArticles
Pervasive punishment
in a pandemic
Ryan Casey, Fergus McNeill ,
Betsy Barkas, Neil Cornish,
Caitlin Gormley,
and Marguerite Schinkel
University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract
In this paper, we draw on data from a recent study of how COVID-19 and related
restrictions impacted on vulnerable and/or marginalised populations in Scotland
(Armstrong and Pickering, 2020), including justice-affected people (i.e. people in
prison and under supervision, their families and those that work with them; see
Gormley et al., 2020). Focusing here mainly on interviews with people released
from prison and others under community-based criminal justice supervision, we
explore how the pandemic impacted on their experiences. Ref‌lecting upon and ref‌in-
ing previous analyses of how supervision is experienced as pervasive punishment
(McNeill, 2019), we suggest that both the pandemic and public health measures
associated with its suppression have changed the painsand gainsof supervision
(Hayes, 2015), in particular, by exacerbating the suspensionassociated with it.
We conclude by discussing the implications of our f‌indings for the pursuit of justice
in the recovery from COVID-19.
Keywords
probation, parole, supervision, punishment, pandemic, COVID-19
Introduction
Between July and December 2020, the Scotland in Lockdown study explored how
COVID-19 and related restrictions impacted on vulnerable and/or marginalised
Corresponding Author:
Professor Fergus McNeill, SCCJR, University of Glasgow, Florentine House, 53 Hillhead Street, Glasgow,
G128QF, UK.
E-mail: Fergus.McNeill@glasgow.ac.uk
Article The Journal of Communit
y
and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2021, Vol. 68(4) 476492
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02645505211050871
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
populations in Scotland (Armstrong and Pickering, 2020). People in and around the
justice system (people in prison, after release and on supervision, as well as their fam-
ilies) were one of the populations included (Gormley et al., 2020). In this paper, given
the aims of this special issue of the Probation Journal, we focus mainly on how the pan-
demic impacted on people released from prison and others under community-based
criminal justice supervision.
The f‌irst COVID-19 case in Scotland was reported on 1st March 2020 and the f‌irst
death was recorded 12 days later. On 20th March, the Scottish Government told
cafés, pubs, and restaurants to close, and the f‌irst national lockdownfollowed
on 23rd March. Regimes of punishment and control were swiftly and dramatically
impacted. On 25th March, all Sheriff Court business (and with it most criminal pro-
ceedings) was indef‌initely adjourned, except for cases where the accused was in
custody. These court closures created major backlogs in proceedings and, as we
discuss below, effectively prolonged community sentences. Criminal justice social
work (hereafter CJSW) moved swiftly to provision of remote supervision and
support in most cases (i.e. via telephone contacts) and all unpaid work ordered
as part of Community Payback Orders (the main community sentence in Scotland)
was suspended. To manage the crisis in prisons, COVID-19 emergency measures
(introduced by the Scottish Government and approved by the Scottish Parliament
as the Coronavirus [Scotland] Act 2020) included an early release scheme. After
some delay, the Scottish Prison Service also implemented virtual visits and began
to issue mobile phones within prisons for the f‌irst time. For those that remained in
prison for the duration of lockdown, most were conf‌ined to their cells for 22
23 hours per day. Almost all other daily activities in prison were cancelled, includ-
ing in-person visits, external services, education and library access, fellowship meet-
ings and church services (though quickly replaced with recorded services), prison
work parties, and gym access (for a comprehensive timeline of events relating to
Scottish prisons and prisoners, see SPARC, 2021). People who were released
(both through the early release scheme and through routine release processes)
returned to a society that was profoundly altered, in previously unimagined ways.
Given the nature of the changes, both within Scottish society and in the justice
system, it is not surprising that the analysis offered below suggests that the pandemic
signif‌icantly changed how people experienced supervision. In general, for our
studys participants, state supervision became less supportive and more residualised
around risk management. At the same time, the specif‌ic pains of suspension, which
have been associated with conditional forms of punishment in the community
(McNeill, 2018; 2019; 2020), were signif‌icantly exacerbated, both for people dir-
ectly under penal control and for their families. In response to these developments,
some small grass-roots community organisations stepped up their provision of prac-
tical and emotional support in interesting and creative ways. Both these positive
initiatives and our wider analysis of the pandemics impact on supervision offer
important lessons for the post-pandemic recovery.
In the next section, we summarise some previous work about the pains of punish-
ment, especially within the community, before moving on to outline the methodology
of our study. In presenting our f‌indings, we discuss how the pandemic impacted on
Casey et al. 477

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