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national, 3-year-long study was the largest and most
comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken. With funding
from Congress through the National Institute of Justice,
and with substantial support from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care
convened expert panels that included the nation’s most
respected researchers, practitioners and scholars in the
fields of public and correctional health care. The final
report was delivered to Congress by the National Institute
of Justice in May 2002.
Prisons and jails offer a unique opportunity to
establish better disease control in the community by
providing improved health care and disease prevention to
inmates before they are released. A series of papers
(summarized in Volume 1 and provided in full in Volume 2) documents indisputably that tens of
thousands of inmates are being released into the community
every year with undiagnosed or untreated communicable
disease, chronic disease and mental illness. The research
also shows that not only would it be cost effective to
treat several of these diseases while the individuals are
incarcerated, but in several instances it would even save
money in the long run.
There are serious political,
logistical and financial
barriers to improving health services in prisons and
jails. Implementing the recommendations in this carefully
researched report will go a long way toward taking
advantage of this opportunity and contribute significantly
to improving the health of inmates and the larger
community.
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