The Nevada Law Journal is pleased to announce Volume 25’s symposium issue, Shadows of Confinement: Illuminating Public Health Struggles Behind Bars. This symposium will explore incarceration’s impact on health: its causes and effects, current and potential legal solutions, and the implications of these solutions for our society, nation, and world.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The rapid expansion of the correctional system has led to disproportionate effects to the health concerns of incarcerated populations. Communicable diseases spread quickly in carceral settings. Racial disparities lead to heightened health issues in minority groups. Burdensome out-of-pocket costs during captivity impair access to needed care. Not only is the nation facing a mental health crisis, but people behind bars are facing it at a disproportionate rate. Lack of adequate treatment of mental health care allows these problems to fester and to spread beyond correctional facilities. Overcrowding in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers only exacerbates these health issues, and causes these facilities to become de facto hospitals and treatment centers. The presence of public health issues behind bars is paramount and only continues to become more prominent as the number of detainees increases.
This Nevada Law Journal will explore these, and other, specific issues impacting health in incarcerated populations, proposals addressing issues, and implications of potential solutions moving forward.