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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2009.168658v1 99/9/1542    most recent Submit a response View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Wilper, A. P. Articles by Himmelstein, D. U. PubMed Articles by Wilper, A. P. Articles by Himmelstein, D. U. Related Collections Access to Care Quality of Care Human Rights

Andrew P. Wilper, MD, MPH, Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH and David U. Himmelstein, MD

All of the authors are with the Department of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA.

Correspondence: Correspondence should be sent to: Andrew P. Wilper, MD, MPH, 500 West Fort St, Boise, Idaho, 83702 (e-mail: wilp9522@u.washington.edu). Reprints can be ordered at http://www.ajph.org by clicking the "Reprints/Eprints" link.

	Because this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

The United States has embraced mass incarceration as social policy. We join the American Public Health Association in opposition to this practice and consider it to be a national disgrace.¹ This convention violates the human and constitutional rights of many inmates, and damages communities and children raised with a parent behind bars. Incarceration of the mentally ill is especially egregious, common, and often preventable.

We believe that everyone has a right to high-quality health care, whether they are incarcerated or not. As a Bush administration surgeon general put it in a report that was suppressed for fear that it would . . . [Full Text]