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Breanne Pleggenkuhle and Joseph A. Schafer, "Crime, Corrections, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Responses and Adaptations in the US Criminal Justice System" (Southern Illinois UP, 2025)
00:24:20
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Stephen Pimpier, host of the Public Policy Channel and we are joined today by Brianne Pl, who is co editor with Joseph A. Shaffer of Crime corrections and the COVID 19 pandemic responses and adaptations in the US criminal justice system from Southern Illinois University Press. Brianne, welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
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C
Thank you for having me.
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B
So I wonder if we might start off by asking you just to tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do and what brought you all to this book project.
- [01:42]
C
My name is Brianne again. I'm a professor of criminology and criminal justice at SIU Carbondale. My research interests tend to primarily focus on post conviction experiences, particularly how communities really matter, the context, family support, collateral consequences. Why after any sort of intersection with the justice system, life may be a little bit more challenging. So that's always been my sort of pathway, my focus, what I teach about, what I tend to research about, what my ongoing agenda tends to be. My co editor, Joe Schaefer, he was formerly a professor at Carbondale. He's now at Arizona State University. He is more on the front end, more sort of like the policing, the enforcement, the organization of criminal justice. So together we were really drawn to the idea of during the Pandemic under drastically changed policies, social atmosphere, et cetera, how that would affect behaviors, individual community patterns, policies, interactions with each other, and how that really shaped our understanding of how the criminal justice system operated at the back end. But also we ended up sort of expanding that to criminal behavior patterns, measures, and changes in even the types of crimes that we really started seeing.
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B
Terrific. So I wonder if we might do a little bit of maybe table setting for folks to start. We are recording in early September of 2025, notions of crime, let's call it that are very much in the news as there are all sorts of accusations being lobbed out of the White House about rampant crime in various cities throughout the United States. So I wonder if you might talk to us just sort of, what do we know about patterns in crime? Say what, prior to the COVID pandemic? We'll focus intensely on the COVID pandemic in a minute and then sort of what we can say about those patterns afterward so that we can give sense sort of how we put the discussion of the COVID period in context.
- [03:47]
C
Those are really good questions. I mean, there's always been debate about crime patterns, the prevalence of frequency, or documentation of it. I always like to say I'm in a great business, I have great job security. Because no matter what, we always have crime, and we always have a response to crime. How we define that is just what often changes over time. Starting, there's always been sort of a political, public fear kind of issue. Starting back in the 70s, into the 2000s. We've seen crime really rise in the 80s, peaked in the 90s, and since then it's been a pretty steady decline. And there's a lot of maps, a lot of different data sources that tell us that even within that time period. So since the 1990s into the 2000s, most people would identify crime as being a persistent problem, that it was rising, that violent crime was up, that property crime was up, drug crime was up, and the data just really didn't agree with that. We consistently saw crime declining again. About 1992 was a start of that. And there's a historic number of textbooks, articles that try to unpack really what's going on. The short answer is a lot. There's not one answer. Economy, population, demographic shift, all sorts of factors. Individually, the big picture stuff, state policies. What's been more consistent is the actual decline. We're at sort of historic lows leading into the COVID pandemic. People were sort of, I think, apprehensive. Right. But we didn't know what was going to happen with lockdowns. Similar to what we used to see is that, you know, more people are at home sort of means more guardianship. So we may see that home burglaries would be, you know, down because more people are at home. Much like the flip side, when we actually saw more women entering the workforce in the 1970s, we saw home burglaries maybe increase a little bit because there's less guardianship at home. No one's. No one's in the house. It's a little bit easier to burgle. So those types of big patterns of people are just home or out. Commercial businesses aren't open. So maybe that, you know, creates more potential for that. But at the same time, you have, you know, maybe tensions are heightened, economic despair sort of enters. So maybe interpersonal relationships become a little bit more risky. So maybe property crime might be declining, but interpersonal violence might be up. So we really just weren't sure what to expect. Early reports tended to show that crime actually declined, or at least calls to police declined, or maybe just how police were recording those calls declined because they were also sort of on that lockdown. So we saw a lot of variation in, say, the 18 months or so of when these lockdown sort of policies and behaviors were sort of in the height of the pandemic where we saw sort of sharp declines and then some sharp increases in others. Drug crimes, overdoses, we saw a little bit there. But overall, there's not really a short answer. Since the pandemic, we've sort of continued on that decline in terms of most crime is down. We're reaching near historic levels, sort of bottoming out. Where you could compare us to where we had those peaks and massive declines. That's at a national level. That's not to say that there's not pockets where maybe there's more or less. You know, if you look urban versus rural, crime happens in both places. There's just fewer people in rural area areas. So looking at crime numbers doesn't really make sense. We look at crime rates, but on the whole, you know, it's been pretty, pretty successful. We can't say any single policy worked. Getting tough on crime didn't really work. We saw crime continue to rise. But economic policies, political parties, rehabilitation efforts, prevention policies, some of these things are really working. And we're seeing historic patterns of low levels of crime in a lot of places.
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B
So let's Lynn home in on. On the focus of the book. Let's look at sort of The COVID period itself. And you've already done a little bit of this work sort of of trying to throw the. The anticipated results against what it is that we were actually able to determine. One of the things that I think is super interesting about the book and the way that it's constructed is that you're covering an enormous array of different. Not only categories of crime, but actors and the way they altered their own behavior. There's attention there to ways in which changes in the data may be artifacts of limitations on collecting that data. And then, of course, we've got all kinds of different methodologies that the folks who are contributing to the book are offering. So help us make it all make sense. We're trying to wrap our head around this. What is it that you all see as you put all of these interesting contributions together?
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C
What sort of the big takeaway? What's interesting, as we started asking contributors, how would you maybe consider this is we got such a smorgasbord of how people thought about that, whether it's actors working within the system. So we have perspectives from frontline officers, police officers, probation and parole court actors. We have accounts or estimates of people who are system impacted and victims, and generally how we. How we broaden that out. So the idea was really to look at almost. Not that Covid was an opportunity, but it really highlighted already existing flaws, maybe in the system or obstacles that existed. A really good example of that are, you know, the difficulty it can be to adhere to court appointments for people who are under supervision. Whether that's. I live in a very rural space. From where I live, the courthouse is over 10 miles away. And so there's not a lot of buses that run there. So if I were reliant on that, it would be maybe a whole day off of work to go to a court appointment. And so with everybody locked down, we shifted to online court systems. How did that work? What were the benefits? What were the risks? What were issues? And so that's a really thorough look at, hey, this could actually extend. And many of those policies have since extended past Covid for opportunities maybe to have more equity and access to things of that nature. It drew a lot more attention to existing problems of burnout for police officers or for probation and parole officers. These are already existing issues. This really sort of heightened it and magnified and maybe drew attention to specific types of crime. Also that campus crime and university police operated a little bit differently. What are the roles and responsibilities and how those are managed? So each chapter really tries to take maybe a specific part of the system or understanding crime. Those are a little bit on the front end and really highlighted those issues that as Dr. Schaeffer and I were sort of thinking about what this book might look like, we really saw it as a way to draw attention, to maybe see what policies were impactful or effective or could change sort of beyond Covid, hoping that that wouldn't be a long term standing the other side of it was very much again it really reinforced our difficulty sometimes in measuring crime. Again, as I mentioned earlier, most data sources point whether we ask victims in surveys, whether we have police report, whether we have self report on criminal involvement. Those patterns are relatively aligned. But you're going to get drastically different numbers if you ask police how often something are happened versus victims. With one of the starkest difference being any sort of personal related crime. So a lot of people, a lot of crime goes unreported. So this really highlighted the import of understanding different measures and what the limitations and strengths. Because I teach a class, we ask my students to go through these sort of main measures. What's good about this, what's bad. And the bottom line is you need several sort of triangulation focuses to really understand the pattern. I highlight a lot of qualitative work that means I like to talk to people and hear what they're thinking. Getting that insight more than only a survey response, more than just police report logs. So understanding how did it feel patrolling a neighborhood, knowing you may not want to exit your car or how you felt being in a mask, you know, having to make arrests, things of that nature that you can't tap into. So what this really the book aims to do is give a lot of those different perspectives some insight into methodology, measures, sort of that empirical side of things. But really it's a layperson. You can take away big picture changes, alterations, policies that were impactful during the course of the pandemic.
- [12:54]
B
So we've of course talked about the pandemic itself, but what we haven't yet talked about is the other signal event of that period, which is by many accounts the single largest and most widespread protest in all of us recorded history in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. And building off the already pre existing Black Lives Matter movements, talk a little bit about how that fits into the puzzle. And our effort to think about the criminal legal systems and the categories of things that we identify as crime.
- [13:31]
C
This is a really ambitious task. And one of our chapters specifically highlights sort of that intersection happening in May, June of 2020, right at the height of Stay home policies and. And a pretty major sort of what we would identify as a tipping point effect. Certainly not the first, it hasn't been the last, but really a centralized rallying point. And so that aspect was, I think, difficult. The authors did a fantastic job to wrangle in terms of separating what was sort of COVID burnout, what was stressful about sort of being doubted in terms of legitimacy. You have broader public distrust now in all sorts of authority because you have just a multitude of different policies coming for Covid stay home. But in the next county, you can go out masks here, not here. Lockdowns versus we're just sort of a free for all. Who's telling us that? Who's enforcing that? And then in addition, we have this layer of a really tragic event, no matter your view on it, and a rallying central cause that really brought people together. So it's this juxtaposition, I think, that. And I have my book here, that the chapter really dives into in terms of understanding this from a law enforcement perspective. So that's a. That's a real highlight. That's not as prevalent in all chapters, but certainly current issues are contemporary. There's another chapter that focuses on legalization of work and sort of work trafficking that's relevant to policies of immigration status or what people are willing to report or not report. So it skirts some of these broader contemporary issues, as you note with George Floyd and protests and some of these continuing very social issues that are exaggerated, that persist and in some cases are even more magnified, perhaps in the midst of a pandemic, whether it's beyond, you know, whether people were willing to go out and protest because it's in the midst of lockdowns and additional sort of infringement, perceived infringements on freedoms or dictation, or understanding whether there's less likelihood to do that. Those are still things we don't know. But certainly those social issues, I don't say interfere because I think it adds complexity and understanding of. Of how we sort of behave during the pandemic and continue to. That hasn't so much changed, maybe gave a little bit more motivation in some capacities.
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B
And despite that, at least in some of those protests, there were calls to defund the police or to reorganize the ways in which those expenditures were allocated and maybe, say, shift funding from traditional policing to social work interventions and other kinds of things. What have we seen in the wake of that? Have we actually seen fundamental changes in the ways in which municipal police forces are organized or funded?
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C
I don't think as much as we might expect given the loudness of that conversation. And I don't those protests defund the police was very catchy and I think the real policy implication was not so much defund but as you noted, restructure, sort of rethink. What's the purpose behind policing. Should we be investing in additional forms of social support during those events? Social workers that help with, you know, service based calls or needs based calls, which the police frequently get. We know that many of our other services are drastically underfunded. Many are. Many police departments would say they they can't afford to prioritize both. So when the coin lands where they're going to land on the side of enforcement, we often say that's the same way with probation and parole and community supervision. Wanting to do both, protecting the public seems to gain the most consistent, consistent support, which makes sense. But I wouldn't say that we've seen a tremendous amount of restructuring in terms of fundamental budgets. We've seen going all the way back and this isn't quite relevant to the COVID but going all the way back to early 2010s with some other incidents we saw consent decrees becoming more common and efforts we've seen actually some maybe distancing from some of those depending on the political social climate. So I wouldn't say, and this would be Dr. Schaeffer's more general area, probably better expertise, but I don't think there's been, despite that call, a tremendous shift in that funding. Do I think on a lot of levels there have been more efforts to be maybe more creative or expand understanding that broader role of law enforcement? I do, I do think that that has been some very positive steps forward.
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B
And there are plenty of law enforcement officers who will themselves tell you that they are being asked to perform duties that they are not necessarily well trained for. Correct?
- [18:42]
C
Correct.
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B
Yeah. So you talked earlier about some of the practices that were instigated during the pandemic, like remote hearings, for example, that in some places in some jurisdictions have continued. What other lessons from your mind do you think that we can take from the forced alterations that were made in the way that we organize the society and economy and everything that goes along with it, whether they have in fact continued or those that haven't continued that you think are worth re examining given the scope of the book and the lessons that it tells us?
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C
Yeah, I think one primary policy is again recognizing and I'll start with maybe the people who are most directly we talk about police and that burnout and Feeling delegitimized or maybe feeling unprepared. I think there's been greater recognition of some of that and whether that be, you know, supports or access to mental health care or burnout or coping techniques and stress techniques for people.
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B
Extremely high suicide rates among law enforcement officers, correct?
- [19:51]
C
Yes. Amongst many, many sort of that people who are dealing directly with public safety issues. We definitely see elevated risk of self harm. We see a lot of, you know, burnout in terms of job shifts and divorce and other sort of negative sort of individual effects. People who work in prison.
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B
Interpersonal violence as well in addition.
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C
Absolutely. Yeah. And we, we, what we're, we don't have as much are people who are working in prisons during this time who are exposed to disease. So what we see is that this really drew attention to maybe, I don't want to say the plight, the, the challenges and the very, very real obstacles that weren't new but again exaggerated. So I think there's been more attention paid to what in the workplace and what adds a broader sort of support system is available for this type of work industry. In the case of accessibility and court proceedings being held by a zoom for probation and parole appointments, can these be tala, some sort of telehealth, more access to hotlines? We see this with domestic violence and interpersonal home violence that you know, many are unable to leave a home situation because there's just nowhere to go. So having those resources that people know where to call, who to call in the event of crime or victimization or you know, wanting some assistance. We saw the establishment of more video telehealth rural spaces saw in particular some of the benefits of that. So more accessibility across all sorts of spheres from victims to service provision areas where sort of we're talking about did crime go up or down cybercrime and you know, many people turn to online retail theft, things of that nature, commercial theft policies that, you know, maybe these were sort of overlooked or sort of under, I don't want to say underappreciated under maybe we didn't pay a lot of attention to these really high impact kinds of crimes, whether it be individual financial loss or capitalism or sort of profit evening into profits, but maybe more creative solutions in terms of monitoring systems and increasing security measures and changing those preventative practices. I think a lot of those have extended changing hours or how things are monitored in terms of accessibility on the retail side of things. And so again we don't have super, super clear crime answers from the COVID pandemic but what I do think we have are policies that did really work, going back to really core things we know, guardianship and accessibility and social support and peers. All these things really matter. And we can leverage those to better use our resources to prevent crime and then respond. In addition, for those who are enforcing legal aspects of the justice process, as well as those who are going through that process themselves, the idea is to have less crime, less recidivism, and those are easy ways we can do that.
- [23:03]
B
You are listening to the Public Policy Channel of the New Books Network, and we have been speaking with Brianne Plug and Coel, who is the co editor with Joseph A. Shaffer, Crime corrections and the COVID 19 pandemic responses and adaptations in the US criminal justice system, new out from Southern Illinois University Press. Brianne, thank you so much for joining us today. Much appreciated. Appreciate it.
- [23:24]
C
Thank you.