Confronting Confinement

The daily count of prisoners in the United States has surpassed 2.2 million. Over the course of a year, 13.5 million people spend time in jail or prison, and 95% of them eventually return to our communities. Approximately 750,000 men and women work in U.S. correctional facilities as line officers or other staff. The United States spends more than $60 billion dollars annually on corrections. Many of those who are incarcerated come from and return to poor African-American and Latino neighborhoods, and the stability of those communities has an effect on the health and safety of whole cities and states. There are nearly 5,000 adult prisons and jails in the United States.

Recommended changes to correctional facility medical care:

• Partner with health providers from the community
   
• Build partnerships within facilities between corrections administrators and officers and health care providers
   
• Commit adequate resources through legislative means to identify and treat mentally ill prisoners
   
• Screen, test, and treat for infectious disease under the oversight of a public health authority
   
• Extend Medicaid and Medicare to eligible prisoners in correctional facilities to help cover the costs of providing health care
   
• Limit segregation in correctional facilities:
   
• Make segregation a last resort
   
• Do not release people directly from segregation to the streets
   
• End conditions of isolation
   
• House mentally ill prisoners in secure therapeutic units
   
• Allow people in segregation to participate in treatment, work, study, to feel part of a community