Lockdown under lockdown? Pandemic, the carceral and COVID‐19 in British prisons
Open accessAbstract
The relationship between pandemic, or chronic infectious diseases, and the carceral, meaning set‐apart spaces of enforced confinement for ‘wrong‐doers,’ has a long, tangled history. It features in Foucault's inquiries into disciplinary power and its associated spatial formations, not least in the shape of the modern prison. Drawing lightly from Foucault's claims about disciplinary and biopolitical power, as well as on his anti‐prison activism, this paper explores three possibilities for penal transformation arising during the early months of COVID‐19 in UK prisons (circa March to August 2020). Consulting primary source material, these possibilities are respectively identified as ‘retrenching,’ ‘reworking’ or ‘reducing’ the carceral. A chief finding is that under the press of pandemic ‘emergency,’ the tilt of emphasis has been towards a retrenched or reworked ‘carceral state,’ disappointing any promise of abolition, let alone more humble reduction in carceral conditions. The ‘biological sub‐citizens’ of prisons are hence being left especially vulnerable to the press of pandemic, in part precisely because of how carceral spatialities are being intensified.
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Being uncertain about the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 'pandemic fear' that became arduous for the two communities.
“Being uncertain about the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a 'pandemic fear' that has become arduous for the two communities [69].”
From Exploring Psychosocial Stressors and Coping Strategies During the COVID‐19 Lockdown: A Study of Two Low‐Income Communities in South Africa (2025) · cites this paper as [69]
The Introduction reports prison staff expressing fears about COVID-19, and “Applied population geographies” describes prisoners terrified of infection. The paper also discusses vulnerability both inside and outside prisons, but these passages do not establish that uncertainty caused a shared “pandemic fear” that was arduous for the two communities. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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Cites
Conceptualizing the carceral in carceral geography
Moran, D., Turner, J., & Schliehe, A. K. (2018) · Progress in Human Geography · doi:10.1177/0309132517710352 · Cited by 268 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…– or what we call simply the carceral state – is the state at its most coercive: cement and steel bars, cuffs, batons, and an arsenal of weapons held by police, parole officers, and prisons to maintain control over those members of society deemed most in need of containment” (Morrell, 2018, p. 51).”
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Gwadiso, X. A., Taliep, N., Ismail, G., James (née Louw), S., & Swart, L.-A. (2025) · Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology · doi:10.1155/jts5/8167323 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Schliehe, A., Philo, C., Carlin, B., Fallon, C., & Penna, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Bonn (DE)
- University of Glasgow (GB)
- Independent Scholar Glasgow UK
- Independent Scholar Oxford UK
- Corresponding author
- Schliehe, Anna
- Venue
- Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2022-07-15
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 880-897
- ISSN
- 0020-2754 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-5661
- PMC
- PMC9347962
- OpenAlex
- W4290145117
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 10.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Foucault, Power, and Ethics
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, prisons, carceral state, Michel Foucault, disciplinary power, biopolitics, prison reform, prison abolition, British prisons
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