\nScienceDaily, 1 June 2011,\n\nU.S. Physicians Call for New Approach to Address National ‘Epidemic of Mass Incarceration’<\/a>\n \nIn a Perspective article to appear in the June 2 issue of the New England\nJournal of Medicine (NEJM), the authors argue that much of this epidemic\nis due to inadequate treatment of addiction and mental illness in the\ncommunity, which they say can be linked to policy changes over the last\n30 years, such as severe punishment for drug users as a result of the\nnation’s “War on Drugs.”\n \n\n \n“Sadly, without these linkages to transitional care in the community,\nthe majority of these individuals will re-enter the revolving door of\nthe criminal justice system, which already costs our county $50 billion\nannually,” he adds.\n<\/blockquote>\nWhat is to be done?\n\n\n \nStart with diagnosis and treatment of diseases, mental and physical,\nand follow up with re-entry programs:\n \nPartnerships between correctional facilities and community health care\nproviders — especially community health centers and academic medical\ncenters — also can capitalize on health gains made during incarceration\nand improve the continuity of care for former inmates during the critical\npost-release period.\n \n“Health care reform, with the Affordable Care Act, has the potential to\nimprove access to much needed health care, which in turn, could redirect\nmany people with serious illnesses away from the revolving door of the\ncriminal justice system,” the authors write, adding that this could avoid\ncosts, re-incarceration and other adverse outcomes related to untreated\naddiction and mental illness.\n<\/blockquote>\n \nOh, and stop locking up so many people:\n \nHere’s the actual NJEM article,\n\nMedicine and the Epidemic of Incarceration in the United States<\/a>,\nJosiah D. Rich, M.D., M.P.H., Sarah E. Wakeman, M.D., and Samuel L. Dickman, A.B.\nN Engl J Med 2011; 364:2081-2083June 2, 2011.\nSomeone has helpfully posted a PDF.<\/a>\n \nSince locking up so many people is a public health problem,\nwe don’t need to make it worse by using tax dollars to profit\nprivate prison companies.\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.\n \n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everybody from Serpico to Richard Branson and even the U.S. Senate says the War on Drugs has failed and we should stop locking up so many people. Now physicians weigh in. ScienceDaily, 1 June 2011, U.S. Physicians Call for New Approach to Address National ‘Epidemic of Mass Incarceration’ With 2.3 million people behind bars and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,14,41,72,178],"tags":[4389,8817,4391,8701,8730,4390,7,4375,4388,4386,75,1297,4387,8749],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-economy","category-health-care","category-incarceration","category-vlcia","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-cca","tag-center-for-prisoner-health-and-human-rights","tag-georgia","tag-incarceration","tag-josiah-d-rich","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mental-illness","tag-miriam-hospital","tag-njem","tag-prison","tag-private-prison","tag-public-health","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-uN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\nWith 2.3 million people behind bars and an estimated 10 million Americans\ncycling in and out of correctional facilities each year, the United States\nis in the midst of an “epidemic of mass incarceration,” say researchers\nfrom the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, a collaboration\nof The Miriam Hospital and Brown University.\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.internalmedicinenews.com\/fileadmin\/content_images\/imn\/archive_image\/vol41iss6\/70302_fx1.jpg\")
<\/a>\n“More than half of all inmates have a history of substance use and\ndependence or mental illness, yet they are often released to the community\nwithout health insurance or access to appropriate medical care and\ntreatment,” says Josiah D. Rich, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Center for\nPrisoner Health and Human Rights, which is based at The Miriam Hospital.\n\nThere are tremendous medical and public health opportunities that\ncan be created by addressing the health care needs of prisoners and\nformer prisoners, the authors note. “For some inmates, incarceration may\nrepresent their first intersection with the medical community, offering\nan invaluable opportunity to diagnose and treat the overrepresented\nrates of infectious and chronic diseases, addiction and mental illness,”\nsays Wakeman.\n
\nRich concludes that a new evidence-based approach is desperately\nneeded. “Locking up millions of people for drug-related crimes has\nfailed as a public-safety strategy and has harmed public health in the\ncommunities to which these men and women return,” he says. “The medical\ncommunity and policymakers must advocate for alternatives to imprisonment,\ndrug-policy reform and increased public awareness in order to reduce\nthe consequences of mass incarceration.”\n<\/blockquote>\n