Structuring and Recreating Inequality: Health Testing Policies, Race, and the Criminal Justice System
نویسندگان
چکیده
Research shows that prison inmates have a higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS than the general population, prompting widespread measures aimed at diagnosing, quarantining, and treating inmates. Yet, recent scholarship has linked the release inmates to an increase in the HIV incidence rate of various communities. In this paper we explore the disjuncture between institutional policies and potential community outcomes by evaluating health assessments of inmates before, after, and during admission to prison. We argue that the penal institution is an active agent in structuring and recreating health inequalities within prisons, thereby exacerbating existing community health inequities when inmates are released from prison. Using data from the 2002 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails and the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Prisons, we find significant racial, educational, and marital inequalities in health testing and test results. We show that these inequalities vary across types of institutional testing policies and inmate cohorts, with later admission cohorts being less likely to receive HIV tests and future release cohorts having a higher likelihood of being HIV-positive.
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