Honors Theses

Advisor

Laura M. Heller, MLSP, MSS, LISW

Department

Criminal Justice and Security Studies

Publication Date

4-23-2025

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

The United States has the largest correctional system in the world, and as a result, the system is vulnerable to various public health issues, the most recent being the COVID-19 pandemic. Correctional institutions across the country were unprepared for a pandemic of this scale, specific to supplies and regulations. As a result, tens of thousands of incarcerated individuals fell sick in outbreaks, and thousands more passed away due to complications. Regulations varied from institution to institution, and policies then and now are still unclear. To prepare for the future, understanding these policies is vital to better understand where successes and failures were, and this project aims to shed light on this topic. This study uses descriptive quantitative analysis of publicly available secondary data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Impact of COVID-19 on State and Federal Prisons, March 2020–February 2021 report. The researcher manually extracted and organized relevant data points to create original tables comparing Ohio’s prison system to national trends across key indicators. This information will fill in current gaps in understanding and serve to help correctional institutions better understand how to protect their staff and incarcerated populations from future outbreaks and pandemics.

Permission Statement

This item is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code) and may only be used for noncommercial, educational, and scholarly purposes.

Keywords

Undergraduate research

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