Tatz, ErinBekele, HelenMattioli, LaurenPiston, Spencer2024-10-012024-10-012024-01-23Tatz E, Bekele H, Mattioli L, Piston S. The limits of criminal justice reform: an analysis of elite rhetoric in four cities. Journal of Public Policy. Published online 2024:1-25. doi:10.1017/S0143814X230003751469-7815https://hdl.handle.net/2144/49353As the coronavirus pandemic swept the nation in 2020, many emphasized that carceral spaces were hotspots for the virus, leaving Black and Brown people especially vulnerable to infection. In combination with other critiques of racism in the carceral state, these observations created pressure to decarcerate, especially on the political left. How did political elites discuss the carceral state in this changed atmosphere? To answer this question, we analyze rhetoric in public statements across four liberal metropolitan areas during the spring and summer of 2020. In these statements, we find a long-standing discourse of racially paternalist penal welfarism, retrofitted to pandemic times and accompanied by a distinction between “deserving” and “undeserving” criminals. Accommodating portrayals of incarcerated people as vulnerable to COVID-19 and in desperate need of care, this pattern of rhetoric positioned the carceral state as a protector in order to justify continued incarceration.pp. 459-483en-USCopyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0Carceral stateCriminal justiceDiscoursePublic policyRaceArticle10.1017/S0143814X23000375