2

System inflexibility extended incarceration and supervision during the disaster.

COVID-19 disrupted the criminal legal system, but the lengthening of incarceration and supervision came from the interaction between that disruption and requirements that could not bend. Mandatory pre-release programs, split into small cohorts, generated multi-year backlogs that blocked parole releases. Courts and law libraries closed, stalling appeals and pending cases. Release remained conditioned on housing searches that families could not conduct under lockdown. A few participants described “benefits” of COVID, such as an early release or the expiration of probation before a delayed court date. Taken together, these outcomes were ad hoc and inconsistent rather than the product of any deliberate disaster policy.