Imprisonment and Public Health | thefeverblog

Imprisonment and Public Health | thefeverblog.

Excerpt from the 8 December 2014 post

December 8, 2014 thefeverblog Leave a comment

Mass incarceration in the United States goes beyond the logistical issues of overcrowded prisons. A shallow mindset wouldn’t identify the connection between mass incarceration and public health, but it’s prevalent and significance is being recognized. An article published in the New York Times briefly discusses the impact mass incarceration has on public health. It touches on a report published by the Vera Institute of Justice, which is an organization that focuses on making justice systems fairer through research and innovation. Most people in prisons come from impoverished communities, and therefore have low health-status.  Specifically, people in prisons have higher rates of chronic disease, mental illness, and substance abuse.

But that’s really the obvious part of the mass incarceration-public health relationship. Overcrowding exacerbates health problems, especially communicable diseases such as flu and other viral infections. In a previous post, I shared how social reform in Russia led to mass incarceration and in turn one of the largest outbreaks of tuberculosis in history. Mental illness  and substance abuse are major problems in jails, and the problem isn’t being addressed adequately. Although over 45% of incarcerated people have a mental illness and over 68% have substance abuse issues, only 15% receive proper treatment.

But that’s not even the  real problem. [My emphasis] Our justice system is focused on penalizing, so vulnerable people coming out of prison are unable to receive any assistance because their actions have removed their eligibility. On first glance, the conservative argument would be that felons shouldn’t be privy to housing, medical, and financial assistance. But the whole picture has to be taken into consideration. Families can be easily torn apart by a family member being incarcerated, especially when parents are taken away from children.

…

 

Mass incarceration in the United States goes beyond the logistical issues of overcrowded prisons. A shallow mindset wouldn’t identify the connection between mass incarceration and public health, but it’s prevalent and significance is being recognized. An article published in the New York Times briefly discusses the impact mass incarceration has on public health. It touches on a report published by the Vera Institute of Justice, which is an organization that focuses on making justice systems fairer through research and innovation. Most people in prisons come from impoverished communities, and therefore have low health-status.  Specifically, people in prisons have higher rates of chronic disease, mental illness, and substance abuse.

But that’s really the obvious part of the mass incarceration-public health relationship. Overcrowding exacerbates health problems, especially communicable diseases such as flu and other viral infections. In a previous post, I shared how social reform in Russia led to mass incarceration and in turn one of the largest outbreaks of tuberculosis in history. Mental illness  and substance abuse are major problems in jails, and the problem isn’t being addressed adequately. Although over 45% of incarcerated people have a mental illness and over 68% have substance abuse issues, only 15% receive proper treatment.

Related articles

• “Mentally Ill in Prison” Mother Jones Search
• Bioethicists Call for Return to Asylums for Long-Term Psychiatric Care

[Reblog] Imprisonment and public health

From the  December 8, 2014 post at thefeverblog

Mass incarceration in the United States goes beyond the logistical issues of overcrowded prisons. A shallow mindset wouldn’t identify the connection between mass incarceration and public health, but it’s prevalent and significance is being recognized. An article published in the New York Times briefly discusses the impact mass incarceration has on public health. It touches on a report published by the Vera Institute of Justice, which is an organization that focuses on making justice systems fairer through research and innovation. Most people in prisons come from impoverished communities, and therefore have low health-status.  Specifically, people in prisons have higher rates of chronic disease, mental illness, and substance abuse.

But that’s really the obvious part of the mass incarceration-public health relationship. Overcrowding exacerbates health problems, especially communicable diseases such as flu and other viral infections. In a previous post, I shared how social reform in Russia led to mass incarceration and in turn one of the largest outbreaks of tuberculosis in history. Mental illness  and substance abuse are major problems in jails, and the problem isn’t being addressed adequately. Although over 45% of incarcerated people have a mental illness and over 68% have substance abuse issues, only 15% receive proper treatment.

But that’s not even the  real problem. Our justice system is focused on penalizing, so vulnerable people coming out of prison are unable to receive any assistance because their actions have removed their eligibility. On first glance, the conservative argument would be that felons shouldn’t be privy to housing, medical, and financial assistance. But the whole picture has to be taken into consideration. Families can be easily torn apart by a family member being incarcerated, especially when parents are taken away from children.

Suicides and violence are also common in prisons. In the Vera Institute study it was found that 1/3 of deaths in prisons are due to suicide. Everything considered, mass incarceration is an epidemic and it’s public health ramifications are significant. The justice system in the United States needs to work with public health agencies to improve services, education, and awareness in prisons. The system needs to consider cases of penalizing on an individual by individual basis when evaluating eligibility for financial, housing, and medical assistance.

Hepatitis C Cure May Be Too Expensive for Prisoners – Stateline

Surely, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we can find a way to provide basic health care for all.
And this includes prisoners, they too are human beings.

 

Hepatitis C Cure May Be Too Expensive for Prisoners – Stateline.

If used widely, a new generation of antiviral drugs has the potential to wipe out the deadly hepatitis C virus in the United States. But the high price of the drugs might prevent their use in prisons, which house as many as one-third of those who are infected.

The drugs cost anywhere from about $65,000 to $170,000 for a single course of treatment—between three and nine times more than earlier treatments. Ronald Shansky, former medical director of the Illinois prison system and founder of the Society of Correctional Physicians, described that price as “extortionarily high, criminal.”

…

HIV Precedent
States and municipalities typically pay for prisoner health care out of their corrections budgets. When effective HIV treatments emerged in the late 1990s, those budgets grew to accommodate the cost of the drugs, said Edward Harrison, president of National Commission on Correctional Health Care, which sets standards for prisoner health care.

But the new hepatitis C medications present a much bigger challenge. “The prevalence of HCV [hepatitis C) is 10 times greater than HIV and the cost of treatment is probably 10 times greater than a year’s worth of treating HIV,” said Anne Spaulding of Emory University, one of the leading researchers on hepatitis C in prisons.

 

…

The new hepatitis C drugs and others in the pipeline could be the “straw that breaks the back of corrections” and force large-scale changes in penal systems. Already, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, California has had to reduce its prison population by tens of thousands because of inadequate health care. Spaulding said she can foresee the high costs of medicine could force cuts in prison populations across the United States.

Another possibility, she said, would be to create a different mechanism for paying for prison health care, perhaps by extending Medicaid to jail and prison populations.

One thing is clear: The goal of eradicating hepatitis C won’t be achieved unless the campaign involves prisons.

“Because of these new drugs, the conversation about eliminating hepatitis C is finally happening,” said Ninburg of the Hepatitis Education Project. “But if it’s going to be eliminated, we are going to have to address hep C in the correctional setting.”

Related articles

• Hepatitis C: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Why the despicable deserve the best care possible

The comment about this piece I left on Facebook.

Wonderful piece. Yes it is up to God. Whom I believe is pure love, pure mercy. All we can do is do our best to be instruments of his peace. And that includes doctors of compassion as Dr. Greg Smith.

 

From the 2 October article at KevinMD.com by Greg Smith, MD

I received a very intriguing question the other day.

“What happens when someone despicable, someone who has committed some horrible act or made some terrible decision, comes in for evaluation or treatment and you have to see them?”

I have been asked to see child molesters of the worst kind, men (usually) who have done things so vile to children that it would make your stomach turn to hear about them. Having raised three daughters of my own and now having two grandchildren and another on the way, these things brought forth such a visceral reaction from me that it was all I could do sometime to continue the interview and not just scream, “Enough!”

I have sat three feet away, close enough for the toe of our shoes to touch, from a murderer in little interview rooms in a county jail. The feeling is almost surreal when a murderer tells you about his family, spending holidays with his wife, his love for his Chevy truck, and the day he got his first job. You listen and you piece the story together and you do your job, but somewhere in the deep recesses of your brain that little protective, self-preserving blinking red light warns you. This man shot another person at point blank range with a twelve gauge shotgun. He could kill you too.

I have interviewed husbands who beat their wives so badly that they sent them to the hospital, jaws broken, ribs cracked, bleeding, faces blue and puffy and swollen. I have heard them blame their wives for the beatings, explaining to me in plaintive, sincere, pleading tones about how she asked for it, she provoked it, she wanted it, she needed it. Again, stomach-turning stuff, my friends.

The question made me think about these people I’ve interviewed over the years in hospitals and emergency rooms and county jails and clinics and courthouses. What is the common denominator here?

Read the entire article here