Health and Incarceration
Health and Incarceration

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-08-08

Total Pages: 67

ISBN-13: 0309287715

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Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Health in Prisons
Health in Prisons

Author: A. Gatherer

Publisher: WHO Regional Office Europe

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9289072806

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Based on the experience of many countries in the WHO European Region and the advice of experts, this guide outlines some of the steps prison systems should take to reduce the public health risks from compulsory detention in often unhealthy situations, to care for prisoners in need and to promote the health of prisoners and prison staff. This requires that everyone working in prisons understand how imprisonment affects health, what prisoners' health needs are, and how evidence-based health services can be provided for everyone needing treatment, care and prevention in prison. Other essential elements are being aware of and accepting internationally recommended standards for prison health; providing professional care with the same adherence to professional ethics as in other health services; and, while seeing individual needs as the central feature of the care provided, promoting a whole-prison approach to care and promoting the health and well-being of people in custody.

The Effects of Incarceration and Reentry on Community Health and Well-Being
The Effects of Incarceration and Reentry on Community Health and Well-Being

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2020-04-17

Total Pages: 89

ISBN-13: 0309493668

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The high rate of incarceration in the United States contributes significantly to the nation's health inequities, extending beyond those who are imprisoned to families, communities, and the entire society. Since the 1970s, there has been a seven-fold increase in incarceration. This increase and the effects of the post-incarceration reentry disproportionately affect low-income families and communities of color. It is critical to examine the criminal justice system through a new lens and explore opportunities for meaningful improvements that will promote health equity in the United States. The National Academies convened a workshop on June 6, 2018 to investigate the connection between incarceration and health inequities to better understand the distributive impact of incarceration on low-income families and communities of color. Topics of discussion focused on the experience of incarceration and reentry, mass incarceration as a public health issue, women's health in jails and prisons, the effects of reentry on the individual and the community, and promising practices and models for reentry. The programs and models that are described in this publication are all Philadelphia-based because Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of incarceration of any major American city. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States

Author: Committee on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2014-12-31

Total Pages: 800

ISBN-13: 9780309298018

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After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.

Issues and Innovations in Prison Health Research
Issues and Innovations in Prison Health Research

Author: Matthew Maycock

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-30

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 3030464016

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This book constitutes the first publication to utilise a range of social science methodologies to illuminate diverse and new aspects of health research in prison settings. Prison contexts often have profound implications for the health of the people who live and work within them. Despite these settings often housing people from extremely disadvantaged and deprived communities, many with multiple and complex health needs, health research is generally neglected within both criminology and medical sociology. Through the fourteen chapters of this book, a range of issues emerge that the authors of each contribution reflect upon. The ethical concerns that emerge as a consequence of undertaking prison health research are not ignored, indeed these lie at the heart of this book and resonate across all the chapters. Foregrounding these issues necessarily forms a significant focus of this introductory chapter. Alongside explicitly considering emerging ethical issues, our contributing authors also have considered diverse aspects of innovation in research methodologies within the context of prison health research. Many of the chapters are innovative through the methodologies that were used, often adapting and utilising research methods rarely used within prison settings. The book brings together chapters from students, scholars, practitioners and service users from a range of disciplines (including medical sociology, medical anthropology, criminology, psychology and public health).

Insane
Insane

Author: Alisa Roth

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0465094201

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An urgent exposéf the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a person with such disorders. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to show how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.

Emerging Issues in Prison Health
Emerging Issues in Prison Health

Author: Bernice S. Elger

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-05

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9401775583

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This volume recognizes and addresses the health care issues of prisoners, to establish best practices and to learn about approaches to these challenges from around the world. It presents new evidence on several emerging and classical prison health issues. The first goal of this volume is to address emerging issues related to health in prison. Second, it presents the most recent research-based evidence and translates it to the practice. The third goal, is that it allows for sufficient diversity while also incorporating updates of some important already recognized prison health. The volume discusses prisons and the life and well-being of prisoners and staff, after growing problems as drug misuse (incl. tobacco smoking), infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STIs and TB), psychiatric problems, inadequate and unhealthy living conditions (incl. nutrition), overcrowding of prisons. These are addressed adequately in order to meet the international requirements of equivalence of health care. The scope of this volume is at the same type specific and diverse enough to cover the interests of a large audience that includes many types of practitioners involved in health-related issues in the field of prison health care, such as psychologists, nurses and prison administration officers responsible for health care, legal professionals and social workers.

Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners
Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners

Author: Committee on Ethical Considerations for Revisions to DHHS Regulations for Protection of Prisoners Involved in Research

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2007-01-22

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0309164605

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In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded almost 5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, women, people with mental illness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis—are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, have limited privacy, and often receive inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today's correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis contained in this book, Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners, emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: • expand the definition of "prisoner"; • ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; • shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; • update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and • enhance systematic oversight of research involving prisoners.

Ethical Issues in Prison Psychiatry
Ethical Issues in Prison Psychiatry

Author: Norbert Konrad

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-08-23

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 9400700865

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Recent surveys demonstrate a high and possibly increasing prevalence of mental disorders in prisoners. They have an increased risk of suffering from a mental disorder that transcends countries and diagnoses. Ethical dilemmas in prison psychiatry arise from resource allocation and include issues of patient choice and autonomy in an inherently coercive environment. Ethical conflicts may arise from the dual role of forensic psychiatrists giving raise to tensions between patient care/protection of the public.This book describes models and ethical issues of psychiatric healthcare in prison in several countries. Relevant issues are: the professional medical role of a psychiatrist and/or psychotherapist working in prison, the involvement of psychiatrists in disciplinary or coercive measures; consent to treatment, the use of coercion in forcing a prisoner to undergo treatment, hunger strike, confidentiality. The book ends with consensus guidelines concerning good practice in Prison Psychiatry.

Mental Disorder and Crime
Mental Disorder and Crime

Author: Sheilagh Hodgins

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated

Published: 1992-12-29

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780803950238

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Contributors to this volume present and discuss new data which suggest that major mental disorder substantially increases the risk of violent crime. These findings come at a crucial time, since those who suffer from mental disorders are increasingly living in the community, rather than in institutions. The book describes the magnitude and complexity of the problem and offers hope that humane, effective intervention can prevent violent crime being committed by the seriously mentally disordered.