NCJ Number
162080
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 42 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1996) Pages: 331-360
Date Published
1996
Length
30 pages
Annotation
The authors of this article examine how health conditions within lower socioeconomic segments of the population influence the health characteristics of prisoner admissions, and demonstrate how health conditions within the wider society have major implications for prisoner health care systems.
Abstract
Prison organizations are not isolated institutions, thus social and economic change in the wider society affects their internal dynamics. The authors demonstrate how health conditions in society have major implications for prisoner health care systems, examine the effects of recent conservative crime control ideologies on institutional health care programs, and develop a research agenda on prisoner health care issues. Most prisoners come from lower socioeconomic groups, thus the inverse relationship between health and income has important consequences for criminal justice organizations, especially prisons. The authors discuss the following questions: should prisoners have health programs to simply maintain their health, or should they receive services to improve their health conditions while in prison above what they could expect on the streets? Should prisoners pay for their medical services? Deliberate indifference to prisoners' health needs violates the constitution. Scholars and policymakers cannot ignore the relationship between health status and the administration of justice, because this relationship has powerful implications for the way society treats criminal offenders. Tables, references