About the project

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to understand how community supervision agencies can better work with individuals under supervision to improve outcomes during a disaster. This project uses disasters as the context in which to study the breakdown and continuity of social processes in the face of disruption generated by the COVID-19 global pandemic (and where relevant, other disasters). The project will provide deeper insight into the disaster experience of individuals on community supervision and offer suggestions for adoptable system-based policy solutions.

Design

The research involves face-to-face, telephone, and/or web-based interview to . answer the following research questions:

  1. What are the experiences of individuals on community supervision during disasters? 

  2. How do the experiences of people on community supervision during disasters inform potential policy reforms for probation and parole responses to disasters?

About the Researchers

Felicia A. Henry-Conteh

Felicia A. Henry-Conteh is an artivist-scholar whose research expertise includes race, ethnicity, gender, class, carceral studies, arts-based activism, critical criminology, and disasters and the environment. Her creative practices engage with multiple dimensions of Blackness, themes of oppression, freedom, humanity, belonging, grief, and joy. An alum of the University of Delaware, her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC), American University, Arnold Ventures Foundation, and University of Delaware, and published in various journals, such as in Sociology Compass, The Sociologist, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Critical Criminology, Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research, Social Science and Humanities Open, Environmental Justice, Journal of Community Psychology. She has also published on public-facing platforms such as WHYY and Medium. Additionally, Dr. Henry-Conteh is the Founder of Behind the Walls, Between the Lines (BTWBTL), a movement to deepen the awareness of the legacy of racial inequity in America, particularly within the criminal legal system, and inspire activism aimed at its dismantlement. Overall, her work challenges systems of power and advances creative solutions to promote the well-being of marginalized communities.

Tricia Wachtendorf

Tricia Wachtendorf is a leader in disaster research and education. A Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware with a joint appointment in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration, she directs the world-renowned Disaster Research Center – the oldest center in the world focused on the social science and management aspects of disasters. Over the past two decades, her research has focused on multi-organizational coordination before, during, and after disasters, transnational crises, and social vulnerability to disaster events. Dr. Wachtendorf has engaged in quick response fieldwork after such events as the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the tsunamis affecting India, Sri Lanka (2004) and Japan (2011), Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012), the earthquakes in China (2008) and Haiti (2010), as well as the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. With numerous research grants from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, she has published widely on improvisation in disasters as well as disaster convergence. Her most recently funded research projects examine the temporal nature of household and emergency management decision-making during hurricane events, investigate humanitarian logistics during disaster response, and explore stigma and the role triage in the aftermath of public health emergencies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank each participant for sharing their stories with us and making this project possible. We also thank each community-based organization and partner that helped facilitate interviews, recruitment, and participation. This project would not be possible without each of you.