About the Report The Report, Part II: Review of the Re-Entry Process:

chapters and policy statements:
About the Report of the Re-Entry Council

Policy Statement 10, Research Highlight 2

Individuals who are incarcerated are legally entitled to receive some level of physical health care.

Over the past 30 years, the quality and availability of medical services for the prisoner population have been enhanced by multiple federal judicial decisions and by initiatives of a host of professional organizations. [1]   The pivotal legal principle articulated by the courts is that failure to provide adequate health care to prisoners violates their constitutional right under the Eighth Amendment to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. [2]   As a result, prisoners may in fact have greater access to medical care than persons with similar demographics who are not incarcerated.

  1. For example, in one study, 91 percent of state inmates reported seeing a health care professional since their admission to prison. Laura Maruschak and Allen J. Beck, Medical Problems of Inmates, 1997, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: 2001), NCJ 181644. back
  2. National Commission on Correctional Health Care, The Health Status of Soon-To-Be-Released Prisoners: A Report to Congress, vol. 1 (Chicago: National Commission on Correctional Health Care, 2002). back
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