Compared to other types of natural disasters which impact a limited geographic location, the current pandemic is remarkable for the effect it has had on the entire country. The criminal justice system has not been immune to this impact with law enforcement and courts having to adapt their operational decisions and responses. This study will conduct successive interviews with law enforcement agencies and adult criminal courts as they navigate and respond to the public health threat of COVID-19. It seeks to not only document how these agencies have responded, but to understand why they responded as they have, how their response has changed as new information becomes available, and the practical and pragmatic challenges they have faced in the process. Towards these ends, results seek to inform disaster preparedness, resource management, and criminal justice policy.
It has been argued that the deleterious consequences of natural and technological disasters depend largely on the physical and social vulnerability, or access to physical, social, and economic resources, of the impacted population. In much the same way, organizations, business, and other institutions are differentially vulnerable to disruptive events. How they cope with this vulnerability when confronted by such an event can be generally understood in the context of organizational decision making, which implies a complex process that involves differentially weighting specific and abstract costs and benefits associated with potential alternative choices. This study draws on theories/frameworks of emergency management, rational choice, and policing and criminal court administration in order to understand the manner in which law enforcement agencies and criminal courts are coping with the evolving threat of COVID-19. Towards these ends, a stratified random sample of law enforcement and criminal courts in each of the 50 states will be obtained and a longitudinal self-report survey will be administered in order to examine the following issues: (1) the practical and administrative challenges these entities face due to COVID-19, (2) the specific strategies/plans they have implemented or wanted to implement but could not in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, (3) the challenges, successes, and consequences (anticipated and unintended) in the responses and implementation thereof, and (4) why responses were devised, implemented or not implemented, successful, challenging, and produced various outcomes. The study results can then be used to inform the development of new responses and improved implementation of innovative policies and practices, including emergency management plans for pandemics and how to communicate and collaborate effectively across the public health and criminal justice systems.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
