Health Behind Bars: Obamacare and Justice-Involved Populations

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  (ACA) grants the incarcerated and those being released from prison a first-ever chance to get comprehensive, continuous health care.  It will also have a huge impact on offenders in custody awaiting trail, as well as on justice-involved families and communities across the U.S.

On Oct. 21-22, 2013, policymakers, NGOs, correctional care experts and physicians from across the country gathered at John Jay College in New York City to discuss the implications of the ACA for the U.S. corrections system, as well as the political and social landscape in which these dramatic changes are occurring, with selected journalists,

The two-day symposium launched a year-long project designed to help reporters and editors from print, online and broadcast outlets nationwide cover this issue. Twenty  journalists were selected for the unique fellowships, which are administered  by John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ). The Center’s mission, in part, is to encourage and promote excellence in reporting on the 21^st century challenges of the justice system.

Scheduled speakers included: Elizabeth Glazer, deputy director of public safety, New York State Office of Criminal Justice Services; Nicole Redmond, M.D. of the University of Alabama Division of Preventative Health; Emily Wang, M.D., of Yale University, co-founder of the national Transitional Clinics Network; Julio Medina, founder and executive director of Exodus Transitional Services in New York City; Therese Brumfield, vice president of provider operations for Corizon Correctional Health Care; Mercedes Smith, a former New York State prison inmate and outreach/policy specialist for Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Women on the Rise Telling Her Story; Steve Rosenberg, founder and president, Community Oriented Correctional Health Services; and Elizabeth Gondles, Ph.D., health-care advisor at the American Correctional Association Coalition of Correctional Health Authorities.

For a full agenda, a list of speakers & fellows and biographies of all participants,  click HERE.

We are pleased to invite readers to monitor this space for live coverage  of the symposium, and for articles produced by the Fellows.

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