During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, those involved with the criminal legal system experience disproportionate vulnerability to infection, transmission, and mortality, facing additional systemic barriers due to criminal legal involvement (CLI) (e.g., prior incarcerations or probationary status affecting employability or housing security). We use Weick’s (1979) model of sensemaking as a theoretical framework to inform our examination of CLI individuals’ experiences during the pandemic. The primary objective of this paper is to explore the process of sensemaking amid misinformation, trust/mistrust, and vulnerability during the pandemic among CLI communities in three central states (Illinois, Louisiana, and Arkansas). We conducted seven online focus groups (n = 44), between December 2020 and January 2021, from the targeted communities about their awareness of misinformation, trusted or distrusted sources, attitudes about COVID-19 health behaviors (including testing, protective behaviors such as mask-wearing and social distancing, and vaccination), and experiences with the criminal legal system during the pandemic. The concept of equivocality was at the core of the narratives shared among participants, with uncertainty emerging as a meta-theme across all focus groups. The findings of this study should prove useful for those who are developing messaging to combat mis/disinformation and overcome mis/distrust with the medical system and government institutions among those who are disenfranchised.

Stories serve as entry points—bringing us together and bringing us to ourselves. Critical autoethnography bridges the space between scholarship and personal storytelling as a method of theorizing. Holman Jones explains, “The ‘critical’ in critical autoethnography reminds us that theory is not a static or autonomous set of ideas, objects, or practices. Instead, theorizing is an ongoing process that links the concrete and abstract, thinking and acting, aesthetics, and criticism . . . ” Through autoethnography from a critical perspective, I share stories of silence, grief, fear, loss, and rediscovery as a Black woman in a world where the values of White supremacy run rampant. Through narrative performance, I trace my experiences of race, place, gender, childhood, and movement into adulthood. I describe my sense of feeling pulled away from my roots and the beginning of my process of reclamation. Boylorn shares with us, “Our stories are not our own, and we constantly negotiate entrances and exits in the stories of others and in the delicate balance between our public and private lives. Our life stories often mimic the way our lives are lived: layered, complicated, interconnected, with blurred lines of distinction.” Without stories, we cannot heal.