The incarceration rate in the U.S. is higher than any other country in the world, and about five times higher than the median worldwide. The health consequences of incarceration are legion. Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) rates linked to incarceration are more than double that attributed to other conditions commonly experienced in the general population. Death rates are high and are the result of overcrowding, inadequate mental health care, lousy sanitation, freezing temperatures and delayed medical treatments. Half of prison suicides result from solitary confinement.
Further compounding the horrors of the American incarceration system, its burdens are deeply and unevenly felt. African Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites. Nearly half of all Black women have a family member in prison. One in three Black males born today will end up in the correctional system at some point. The bias against people of color is operationalized at many levels: through police arresting minorities at higher rates than whites, prosecutors charging them more often and more severely, leading to longer sentences. The “justice system” is notably unjust.
Read the full article on The Turning Point.