Rejoinder to Vaughn and Smith's "Practicing Penal Harm Medicine in the United States: Prisoners' Voices From Jail"

• NCJ Number: 180341
• Journal: Justice Quarterly Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: December 1999 Pages: 897-906
• Author(s): Ken Kerle; Stan Stojkovic; Richard Kiebusch; Joe Rowan
• Editor(s): Finn-Aage Esbensen
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Correctional health care has improved tremendously over the past 25 years; this rejoinder is a response to an article by Michael Vaughn and Linda Smith in which they assert that the quality of correctional health care is suspect in correctional settings and that an examination of one jail's problems with health care delivery revealed a "penal harm medicine" movement.

Abstract

The rejoinder calls into question the assertions of Vaughn and Smith, claiming that the penal harm medicine hypothesis cannot be proven by the data the two researchers present. In addition, the rejoinder indicates that many of the conclusions of Vaughn and Smith are tenuous and harmful to correctional health professionals. An analysis of their conclusions is presented that focuses the delivery and adequacy of correctional health care and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. A balanced view of correctional health care is suggested. 14 references