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The issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on mass incarceration as a driver of health inequities.


The issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on mass incarceration as a driver of health inequities.

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Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, PhD

Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, PhD, assistant professor of social medicine, contributed to the special issue. Below is an excerpt.

“No other industrialized democracy has a carceral system that is as expansive, punitive, and racialized as that of the United States. More than 2.2 million people in 2018 were incarcerated in jails and prisons, a sixfold increase since the 1970s. Each year more than 600 000 people are released from prisons and more than 11 million cycle through jails, extending the effects of incarceration into households and shaping community health.”

Read the full text here.