Health and Incarceration


Book Description

Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.







Essentials of Correctional Nursing


Book Description

"Essentials of Correctional Nursing is the first new and comprehensive text about this growing field to bepublished in the last decade. Fortunately, the editors have done a great job in all respects...This book should be required reading for all medical practitioners and administrators working in jails or prisons. It certainly belongs on the shelf of every nurse, physician, ancillary healthcare professional and corrections administrator."--Corhealth (The Newsletter of the American Correctional Health Services Association) "I highly recommend Essentials of Correctional Nursing, by Lorry Schoenly, PhD, RN, CCHP-RN andCatherine M. Knox, MN, RN, CCHP-RN, editors. This long-awaited book, dedicated to the professionalspecialty of correctional nursing, is not just a ìgood read,î it is one of ìthose booksî that stays on your desk and may never make it to the bookshelf."--American Jails "Correctional nursing has minimal published texts to support, educate, and provide ongoing bestpractices in this specialty. Schoenly and Knox have successfully met those needs with Essentialsof Correctional Nursing."--Journal of Correctional Health Care Nurses have been described as the backbone of correctional health care. Yet the complex challenges of caring for this disenfranchised population are many. Ethical dilemmas around issues of patient privacy and self-determination abound, and the ability to adhere to the central tenet of nursing, the concept of caring, is often compromised. Essentials of Correctional Nursing supports correctional nurses by providing a comprehensive body of current, evidence-based knowledge about the best practices to deliver optimal nursing care to this population. It describes how nurses can apply their knowledge and skills to assess the full range of health conditions presented by incarcerated individuals and determine the urgency and priority of requisite care. The book describes the unique health needs and corresponding care for juveniles, women, and individuals at the end of life. Chapters are devoted to nursing care for patients with chronic disease, infectious disease, mental illness, or pain, or who are in withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. Chapters addressing health screening, medical emergencies, sick call, and dental care describe how nurses identify, respond to, and manage these health care concerns in the correctional setting. The Essentials of Correctional Nursing was written and reviewed by experienced correctional nurses with thousands of hours of experience. American Nurses Association standards are woven throughout the text, which provide the information needed by nurses studying for certification exams in correctional nursing. The text will also be of value to nurses working in such settings as emergency departments, specialty clinics, hospitals, psychiatric treatment units, community health clinics, substance abuse treatment programs, and long-term care settings, where they may encounter patients who are currently or have previously been incarcerated. Key Features: Addresses legal and ethical issues surrounding correctional nursing Covers common inmate-patient health care concerns and diseases Discusses the unique health needs of juveniles, women, and individuals at the end of life Describes how nurses can safely navigate the correctional environment to create a therapeutic alliance with patients Provides information about health screening, medical emergencies, sick call, and dental care Serves as a core resource in the preparation for correctional nursing certification exams




Correctional Health Care


Book Description







Silent Cells


Book Description

A critical investigation into the use of psychotropic drugs to pacify and control inmates and other captives in the vast U.S. prison, military, and welfare systems For at least four decades, U.S. prisons and jails have aggressively turned to psychotropic drugs—antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives, and tranquilizers—to silence inmates, whether or not they have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. In Silent Cells, Anthony Ryan Hatch demonstrates that the pervasive use of psychotropic drugs has not only defined and enabled mass incarceration but has also become central to other forms of captivity, including foster homes, military and immigrant detention centers, and nursing homes. Silent Cells shows how, in shockingly large numbers, federal, state, and local governments and government-authorized private agencies pacify people with drugs, uncovering patterns of institutional violence that threaten basic human and civil rights. Drawing on publicly available records, Hatch unearths the coercive ways that psychotropics serve to manufacture compliance and docility, practices hidden behind layers of state secrecy, medical complicity, and corporate profiteering. Psychotropics, Hatch shows, are integral to “technocorrectional” policies devised to minimize public costs and increase the private profitability of mass captivity while guaranteeing public safety and national security. This broad indictment of psychotropics is therefore animated by a radical counterfactual question: would incarceration on the scale practiced in the United States even be possible without psychotropics?




Occupations Code


Book Description




Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners


Book Description

In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded almost 5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, women, people with mental illness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis—are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, have limited privacy, and often receive inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today's correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis contained in this book, Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners, emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: • expand the definition of "prisoner"; • ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; • shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; • update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and • enhance systematic oversight of research involving prisoners.