Connecting Ex-offenders to Health Care: a Healthy Prescription

A program that provides newly released inmates from California’s San Quentin prison with transportation to a community medical clinic is part of a growing national effort to connect people released from jails and prisons to health care soon after they get out, according to an article in the East Valley Express.

An organization called Healthy Oakland, which received its state medical clinic license last year, takes a public-health approach to public safety. This past fiscal year, the clinic received $1.2 million from Alameda County to serve as a one-stop health and social services center for the poor.

In addition to its clinic, the Save a Life Wellness Center visitors can get help signing up for housing, employment, food stamps, even tax preparation. Health care and violence prevention may not seem related, but Alameda County is betting there’s an important connection between the two.

For the past half-decade, the county’s Public Health Department has been active in a growing movement that addresses social issues such as poverty, education and crime as a way of creating healthier communities.

“If our charge is to make communities healthier, then we have to look at all of the indicators that are causing a community to be unhealthy,” says Anita Siegel, acting director of the county public health department. “We know violence is one of them. And we also know that the reentry population is coming to Oakland. And if there are no jobs or resources available, then they could end up committing crimes—which will continue the cycle of producing communities that aren’t healthy.”

To read the article, click here.

For more information on inmate health issues and successful reentry strategies, visit Justice Fellowship’s Inmate Health and Prisoner Reentry resource pages.