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‘Incarceration Nations,’ by Baz Dreisinger

Mass incarceration is synonymous with criminal justice in the United States. We are the world’s top jailer, have among the longest sentences, and tolerate shocking racial disparities in imprisonment rates.

Baz Dreisinger is an unusual combination of English professor, journalist and documentary producer whose travels to nine countries to meet with their prisoners led to “Incarceration Nations.” This journey into what she calls “global hellholes” sets an earnest American on a quest for insight into American criminal punishment, via structured encounters with foreign prisoners in situ. Each country is paired with a reflection on a single strategy, from punishment to its alternatives: South Africa’s is truth and reconciliation; Brazil’s is solitary confinement; Uganda’s and Jamaica’s are arts education. read the whole MAGILLA here

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
— Fyodor Dostoevskyincarceration exploitation

How does your state’s use of the prison compare to the nations of the world?

Incarceration Nation: The war on drugs has succeeded only in putting millions of Americans in jail

A Great Injustice – Exploring American Incarceration

Save the date! OCT 27 & 28 – SAN DIEGO


Conference
Behind the curtains the ACHSA board is hard at work determining the focus for the 2016 conference, lining up speakers and vendors.

 

Five Studies: Mental Health Courts Are Finding Their Footing – Pacific Standard

pill judgementSource: Five Studies: Mental Health Courts Are Finding Their Footing – Pacific Standard

Predictive Analytics and the Future of Jail Health Care

From my inbox to yours!

Dear Colleague:

From its inception, Community Oriented Correctional Health Services (COCHS) has viewed connectivity not only as a way to link justice-involved people to services but also as a way to link people in the criminal justice and health care sectors to information.

COCHS CIO Ben Butler is an expert on the myriad issues involved in creating information connectivity between criminal justice and health care. With the rise of big data come new opportunities for magnifying the power of information technology. In a new issue paper, Predictive Analytics in Criminal Justice and Health Care: Three Case Studies, Ben examines how health care providers are working with criminal justice providers to use predictive analytics for reducing incarceration, improving health, and maintaining public safety. Although this work is still in its early stages, the kinds of initiatives discussed in Ben’s paper will no doubt someday be the norm.

Meanwhile, Health Affairs, the nation’s leading health policy journal, recently published Ben’s letter suggesting that jails offer an interesting opportunity to test the efficacy of health information exchange (HIE) for improving the health of a very vulnerable population.

As you know, COCHS has widely disseminated the message that significant numbers of people in jail are there because of untreated behavioral health problems.  When these problems continue to go untreated in jail, they can lead to behavior that causes inmates to wind up in solitary confinement, where conditions are even more detrimental to mental health issues.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote an important concurring opinion for Davis v. Ayala, in which he noted the “human toll wrought by extended terms of isolation” and the inadequacy of current judicial mechanisms for determining the role of solitary confinement in inmate sentencing. Citing COCHS collaborator Dr. Homer Venters, Justice Kennedy wrote that recent research detailing the psychological toll of confinement on inmates challenges us to re-examine the way we view punishment.

With his concurrence, Justice Kennedy has opened the door for the Supreme Court to examine the conditions of confinement and the effects of these conditions on inmates’ mental health. Justice Kennedy foresees a time when the judiciary will “determine whether workable alternative systems for long-term confinement exist, and, if so, whether a correctional system should be required to adopt them.”

With your help, we have brought these alternative systems closer to becoming a reality.

Steven Rosenberg

President, COCHS

 

 

Congratulations to Kings County Probation! 

CA Attorney General Recognizes Kings County Probation Department for Juvenile Reentry Efforts 

California Attorney General Kamala Harris (pictured left) recently awarded the Kings County (CA) Probation Department with a Recidivism Reduction Certificate of Comag-kamala-harris-officialmendation for its work with youth. The department, which is in the process of developing a comprehensive reentry strategic plan aimed at reducing recidivism for youth committed to the county juvenile detention center, received a Second Chance Act Juvenile Reentry Systems Reform planning grant through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 2014.

read more here

image001Read more about the awards recognizing law enforcement.

Learn more about the Second Chance Act grant program.

 

The Other Prison Health Crisis

Hepatitis C is common behind bars, but sick prisoners aren’t getting treatment.

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