Citation
McCauley, Erin J.; LeMasters, Katherine; Behne, Michael F.; & Brinkley-Rubinstein, Lauren (2023). A Call to Action to Public Health Institutions and Teaching to Incorporate Mass Incarceration as a Sociostructural Determinant of Health. Public Health Reports, 138(5), 711-714. PMCID: PMC10467492Abstract
Mass incarceration refers to the system of social and racial control in the United States that arrests, convicts, incarcerates, and supervises racial and ethnic minority populations through probation and parole. Mass incarceration is referred to as “mass” because the current size of this system in the United States is historically and internationally unparalleled. Mass incarceration affects those who are incarcerated and under community supervision, as well as the families and communities where it is concentrated. Mass incarceration is a pervasive cause of health inequities in the United States. Yet, it has long been absent from both public health institutional priorities and core graduate training in public health. Mass incarceration is absent from the required curricula in general public health programs and even specialty programs focused on health equity and sociostructural determinants of health. Given this lack of prioritization and formal education and training, public health scholars may overlook the critical role it plays in individual and community health and the key it holds to achieving health equity. Increased broad awareness of the harms of mass incarceration is needed to disrupt its connection to health inequities and to abolish this system of social and racial control.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00333549221120243Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2023Journal Title
Public Health ReportsAuthor(s)
McCauley, Erin J.LeMasters, Katherine
Behne, Michael F.
Brinkley-Rubinstein, Lauren