In this episode of Michigan Minds, Nora Krinitsky, lecturer in the Residential College on the Ann Arbor campus and interim director of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Michigan prisons. She also explains how PCAP adjusted their work to continue to provide connections and community building to incarcerated individuals.
Krinitsky joined Michigan Minds last March, just as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, to discuss how the coronavirus may affect prisoners physically and emotionally, and why prisons were likely to face difficulties implementing public health guidelines like social distancing.
There have been numerous challenges throughout the past year, she says, and notes that many of the predictions researchers made last March came true. 
“Since March 2020, there have been 139 deaths of incarcerated people from COVID-19, and almost 25,000 positive cases of COVID-19, inside Michigan prisons,” she says. “Many Michigan Department of Corrections staff tested positive and a number of them died as well. We’ve also been dismayed to hear accounts from incarcerated people all year long about what conditions are like right now.”
As a preventive measure, visitors have not been allowed in prisons since March 13, 2020. That disconnect from loved ones weighs heavy on people who are incarcerated, Krinitsky says.
“I remember reflecting over this past year how confusing and stressful it was when we would get conflicting information about COVID-19 out here in the free world. Just that feeling of being out of control and not knowing who to trust. And that feeling is felt just tenfold inside prison, where information can be even harder to get and to trust,” she says.
One of PCAP’s flagship programs is a weekly creative arts workshop, which was abruptly halted by the pandemic. Krinitsky worked with PCAP staff and faculty to develop correspondence workshops, which are modeled on the in-person ones. Facilitators create prompts and activities for participants, with all the work done through the mail. Krinitsky elaborates:
“We provide participants inside prison with a book that serves as a shared way of connecting and discussing topics like social justice, community, and creativity, and the participants inside prison mail their responses to the PCAP office. Needless to say, there is a lot of labor that goes into this process, and it certainly doesn’t provide the same kind of connection and community building that you would get inside in person, but it has been really gratifying to still be forging those connections, even though we haven’t been able to go into prison for a year.”
The other major shift involves the annual exhibition of art by Michigan prisoners. Last year, days before the 25th annual exhibition was set to premiere, the campus was shut down—as was much of the US—in response to the pandemic. They cancelled the show, which was disappointing not only for PCAP but also for the artists, since they make money from the sales at the show, a crucial source of income for many of them.
PCAP had hoped to have the exhibition in person this year, Krinitsky says, but as that wasn’t possible due to the ongoing pandemic, they created a digital exhibition that can be viewed on the PCAP website.
“I worked closely with our curators to create gallery pages that guide the viewer through the work. You can read the statements of the artists themselves on the site, which is something we haven’t been able to do in the gallery before, just for lack of space. And you are also, until March 31, able to purchase a piece of PCAP art over the phone. So, although we clearly would rather be in the gallery together, we’ve gotten a great response to the digital exhibition so far, which has been really heartening.”
Krinitsky adds that prisons are a part of our communities as are incarcerated people and these topics should be discussed more often.
“There is sometimes a sense that prisons are completely shut away from the world. But the fact is that they are very permeable institutions. People cross back and forth across the walls all the time, whether that is staff, visitors, incarcerated people being transferred or getting services outside of prison. So in the same way that we need to think about how prisons affect all different kinds of inequality, we’ve also got to remember that they very deeply affect our public health and have to be central to the way we think about moving forward together.”
Listen to the full episode
View the digital exhibition
