Expanding Access to Health Care
Health problems—from diabetes, to hepatitis C, to drug abuse and mental illness—are much more common among people involved in the criminal justice system. Limited access to health care in their communities is too often the reason they end up in a police car or jail cell. And when the system doesn’t open a door to treatment, their health further deteriorates.
Applying a public health lens to the crisis of mass incarceration can change this dynamic by raising awareness and promoting solutions to both curb incarceration and improve public health in poor communities. Pioneering data sharing across criminal justice and health care systems can break cycles of arrest and incarceration and change peoples’ lives. Work with public defenders can improve legal representation and outcomes for defendants who are mentally ill, and partnerships with officials who oversee jails can prevent suicide and other types of self-harm.
Issue
Spotlights
Featured
Responding to Behavioral Health Crises
Alternatives to Police-Based Approaches
Police are ill-equipped to safely and effectively serve people in behavioral health crisis. Even when officers receive training in crisis intervention and de-escalation, the mere presence of armed, uniformed police whose core function is criminal enforcement can exacerbate distress and escalate mental health-related situations. This threat is compo ...
Corrections-Based Responses to the Opioid Epidemic
Lessons from New York State's Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution Program
As the opioid crisis has swept the nation, more and more states are equipping their first responders and police officers with naloxone, an overdose antidote that reverses opioid overdoses and can be administered by bystanders with minimal training. This report details the efforts of New York State to implement an overdose education and naloxone dis ...
On Life Support
Public Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Mass incarceration is one of the major public health challenges facing the United States, as the millions of people cycling through the courts, jails, and prisons every year experience far higher rates of chronic health problems, substance use, and mental illness than the general population. Mass incarceration’s role as a driver of health dispariti ...
Related Work
A New Way of 911 Call Taking: Criteria Based Dispatching
A Review of the Literature
As a movement across the country has begun demanding changes to policing and public safety, the need to revisit 911 call-taking and dispatching methods has become urgent. The scope of 911 has expanded and technological infrastructure has evolved, but there have been few advances in the call-taking and dispatching aspects of the system over the last ...
States Should Prioritize Incarcerated People for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Documents reveal that the Federal Bureau of Prisons system plans to give its initial supply of vaccines to its staff. Some state leaders say they will exclude incarcerated people from their vaccine priority groups, in violation of CDC recommendations that people who live and work in congregate settings ought to be vaccinated first. These irrational ...
Blog Post
Nicholas Turner
Erica Bryant
Photo by Jovelle Tamayo
Behavioral Health Crisis Alternatives
Shifting from Police to Community Responses
No Access to Justice
Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and Jail
On any given night in the United States, more than 550,000 people experience homelessness. The U.S. legal system criminalizes survival behaviors associated with homelessness and fails to acknowledge that people who are homeless face impossible odds within the legal process. Black people, who already face a disproportionate risk of homelessness, are ...
Family Is Essential Webinar
A conversation with family advocates about COVID-19 and Youth Justice
As youth justice agencies race to prevent and respond to the harms of the novel coronavirus, families are essential partners. In this webinar, hosted by the Vera Institute of Justice and the Georgetown Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, we hear directly from family advocates about the actions families need systems to take in the present moment. Th ...
COVID-19 and Criminal Justice: City and State Spotlights
Series: Covid-19
Two Years in Jail, Never Convicted of a Crime, Now Vulnerable to Coronavirus
Shonday also contracted the disease. Whenever she took a breath, she said she felt pain in her chest. She was dizzy, her head pounded, and she soaked her bed in sweat. Seeing what the disease did to her fiancé and her daughter makes Lisa Williams terrified of what will happen if the virus hits the jail where her son is confined. “This virus is ver ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
COVID-19 and Policing Webinar
Reducing Arrests and Supporting the Health of Communities and Officers
This webinar is designed to support police professionals in their work to protect the health of communities and officers during the coronavirus pandemic. Former and current leaders in policing discuss strategies for reducing the number of people who come in contact with law enforcement and opportunities for further reducing the number of people goi ...
COVID-19 and Jail Releases Webinar
This webinar explores how counties are working to release people from their jails during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they can support the people coming out of jail. County justice system representatives and community partners also discuss the mechanisms counties are using to reduce the number of people in jail in order to prevent the spread of in ...
Series: Covid-19
COVID-19 Imperils People in Rural Jails
It appears to be just a matter of time until things get much worse, especially when one considers the lack of rural health care resources: 128 hospitals have closed in rural counties since 2010. People in jails and prisons are among the people most at risk for contracting COVID-19—and rural America is home to a large number of state and federal pri ...
Blog Post
Jacob Kang-Brown
Jasmine Heiss
COVID-19
Criminal Justice Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic
America has become a global epicenter in the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of the country’s most vulnerable people are in jails, prisons, and detention centers—places where they are at extreme risk of infection and have no ability to protect themselves. This moment highlights the vital need to shift away from punitive practices that funnel people int ...
Vera President and Director, Nicholas Turner, Covid-19 Statement
The COVID-19 crisis is bringing our world to a standstill. However, our nation's jails, prisons, and detention centers are continuing to operate without proper health precautions, leaving incarcerated people and corrections staff extremely vulnerable to the virus. Vera President and Director, Nicholas Turner, responds to the lack of immediate actio ...