Mass incarceration, race inequality, and health: Expanding concepts and assessing impacts on well-being

Abstract

We explore race differences in how individuals experience mass incarceration, as well as in mass incarceration's impacts on measures of well-being that are recognized as major social determinants of health. We draw on baseline data from a sample of 302 men and women recently released from prison/jail or placed directly onto probation in New Haven, Connecticut (CT) for drug related offenses and followed at 6-month intervals for two years (2011-2014). We describe race differences in experiences of mass incarceration and in its impacts on well-being; and we conduct mediation analyses to analyze relationships among race, mass incarceration, and well-being. Blacks reported fewer adult convictions than whites, but an average of 2.5 more adult incarcerations. Blacks were more likely to have been incarcerated as a juvenile, spent time in a juvenile facility and in an adult facility as a juvenile, been on parole, and experienced multiple forms of surveillance. Whites were more likely to report being caught by the police doing something illegal but let go. Blacks were more likely to report any impact of incarceration on education, and dropping out of school, leaving a job, leaving their longest job, and becoming estranged from a family member due to incarceration. Whites were more likely to avoid getting needed health or social services for fear of arrest. Overall, Blacks reported a larger number of impacts of criminal justice involvement on well-being than whites. Number of adult incarcerations and of surveillance types, and being incarcerated as a juvenile, each mediated the relationship among race, mass incarceration, and well-being. Though more research is necessary, experiences of mass incarceration appear to vary by race and these differences, in turn, have implications for interventions aimed at addressing the impacts of mass incarceration on health and well-being.

“When you first walk out the gates…where do [you] go?”: Barriers and opportunities to achieving continuity of health care at the time of release from a provincial jail in Ontario

“…There was limited ability to apply an intersectional lens in our analysis due to the small sample size and lack of formal data collection on race, gender, or other factors of potential interest. Given that women, people who are gender non-conforming, people of colour, and Indigenous persons have unique health experiences shaped by structural determinants of health during and after incarceration and more generally, being able to capture these experiences may be an area of priority in future research on health experiences in the transition between the jail and the community [18,50,51].…”

Resolving Health Disparities for Women Involved in the Criminal Justice System

“…This trend means that more women in the community have been involved in the criminal justice system than ever before. Women who are poor and/or women of color disproportionately bear the burden of women's criminal justice involvement in the United States, and with the rise of the opioid epidemic, increasing numbers of rural women and white women are in jails and prisons [3,4].Approximately 29,000 women were under correctional supervision in North Carolina at the end of 2015 [1]. At mid-year 2015, there were 2,763 North Carolina women imprisoned in state facilities; 2,292 held in local jails; 1,107 on parole, which follows an episode of incarceration; and 23,746 on probation, which is an alternative to incarceration [1,5].…”

“…There are no federal prison facilities that house women in North Carolina. More recent data from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety suggest that this level of criminal justice involvement for women in the state has remained unchanged in recent years [5].The health experiences of women who are involved in the criminal justice system share some of the same features as those of men, with high levels of chronic disease [6, 7], a heavy burden of infectious morbidity [8,9], and the pervasive effects of trauma present in this population [3,10]. Involvement in the criminal justice system also introduces unique reproductive health challenges for women, and addressing them will require innovative and collaborative approaches to address.…”

“…This trend means that more women in the community have been involved in the criminal justice system than ever before. Women who are poor and/or women of color disproportionately bear the burden of women's criminal justice involvement in the United States, and with the rise of the opioid epidemic, increasing numbers of rural women and white women are in jails and prisons [3,4].…”

“…The health experiences of women who are involved in the criminal justice system share some of the same features as those of men, with high levels of chronic disease [6,7], a heavy burden of infectious morbidity [8,9], and the pervasive effects of trauma present in this population [3,10]. Involvement in the criminal justice system also introduces unique reproductive health challenges for women, and addressing them will require innovative and collaborative approaches to address.…”