Are people experiencing the ‘pains of imprisonment’ during the Covid-19 lockdown?

Abstract

Background: By the end of March 2020, more than a fifth of the world’s population was in various degrees of ‘lockdown’ in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. This enforced confinement led some to liken lockdown to imprisonment. We directly compared individual’s experiences of lockdown with prisoners’ experiences of imprisonment in order to determine whether psychological parallels can be drawn between these two forms of confinement.Method: Online surveys of adults in lockdown in the UK (N = 300) and California (N = 450) were conducted four and five weeks into lockdown in each region, respectively. The UK data was then compared to Souza and Dhami’s (2010) sample of 267 medium security prisoners in England, and the Californian data was compared to Dhami et al.’s (2007) sample of 307 medium security Federal prisoners in California. We measured the effects of Group (Lockdown v. Prison) on five categories of dependent variables (i.e., activity, social contact, thoughts, feelings, and rule-breaking), controlling for demographic differences between the groups.Results: In both regions, people in lockdown thought significantly less often about missing their freedom, as well as missing their family and friends living elsewhere than did first-time prisoners. However, people in lockdown in both regions were also significantly less engaged in a range of daily activities than were first-time prisoners. Additionally, in both regions, people in lockdown reported feeling more hopeless than first-time prisoners.Conclusions: Although Governments introducing lockdown policies do not intend to punish their citizens as courts do when sending convicted offenders to prison, such policies can have unintended adverse consequences. Psychological parallels can be drawn between the two forms of confinement, and ordinary citizens in lockdown have, to some extent, sensed the ‘pains of imprisonment.’

COVID‐19 and views of imprisonment in a sample of prison tourists

“…Indeed, pandemics tend to generate fear and anxiety, contributing to discrimination and predation on people pushed to the margins (Freckelton, 2020). The results concord in part with other findings suggesting that people in lockdown experience hopelessness to a greater degree than first‐time prisoners (Dhami et al., 2020), and that the pandemic can lead to an “existential vacuum,” or the experience of a feeling of loneliness and a greater survival‐orientation (Kim et al., 2021). It is possible that this feeling of “hopelessness” among citizens experiencing COVID‐19 restrictions led to apathy toward prison conditions and the use of imprisonment.…”

Comics as Social Media Criticism of Community Activities Restrictions Enforcement Due to COVID-19 in Indonesia

“…PPKM can be interpreted as a lockdown on a regional scale. Some people have compared the COVID-19 lockdown to prisons because of the enforced lockdown (Dhami, Weiss-Cohen, & Ayton, 2020). It is not surprising that prison becomes a metaphor for PPKM which the concept is closely related to lockdown.…”

VI. Die quantitative Studie – Covid-19 aus Sicht der Insassinnen und Insassen

“…Zwei weitere Untersuchungen rekurrierten auf das Konzept des Pains of Imprisonment von Skyes (1958), der das ֦ Leiden֞ auf den Entzug von Freiheit, Gütern, (heterosexueller) Beziehungen, personeller Autonomie und persönlicher Sicherheit zurückführt. Dhami et al (2020) führten eine Befragung einerseits von Gefangenen in England und Kalifornien durch, andererseits eine Befragung der nichtinhaftierten Bevölkerung, was eine vergleichende Betrachtung der Effekte des Lockdowns ermöglicht. Im Er gebnis stellen sie psychologische Parallelen beider Formen des Einschlus ses fest.…”