OVERVIEW

This lesson is part of our Searching for Justice series on criminal justice reform.

When someone is released from prison, they often must rebuild their whole life from scratch while lacking basic government identification, a stable income, or access to housing and health care.  

A 2007 study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine with data from Washington State, found that people leaving incarceration were 12 times more likely to die during the first two weeks after release than non-incarcerated people. Drug overdoses, cancer, cardiovascular disease, homicide, and suicide are some of the most common causes.

To eliminate coverage gaps, some states are working to let people leaving prison more easily get the health care they need. In January, California began offering Medicaid to people up to 90 days prior to their release from incarceration.

OBJECTIVES

• Students will understand what conditions many face after their release from jail or prison.
• Students will grasp, critique, and debate recent and proposed Medicaid expansions to the incarcerated.
• Students will outline an explainer news package based on the lesson.

SUBJECTS

Criminal Justice, Health and Human Services, Social Studies, U.S. Government and Civics

ESTIMATED TIME

1-3 50-minute class periods

Warm-up activity

Choose: Have the class watch PBS Newshour’s Laura Santhanam’s interview with Tradeoffs producer Ryan Levi or take turns reading aloud the transcript of this episode of Tradeoffs and talk about the following paragraph:

But [Lee Reed’s] pain continued to get worse. The constant agony and Reed’s inability to support himself took a toll on his mental health, occasionally making him wonder if his life was worth living.

• Discuss: What are some systemic causes for Reed’s declining mental health? 

Main activity

• Have students take turns reading only the “Results” section of "Release from Prison - A High Risk of Death for Inmates", published in the New England Journal of Medicine (don't read the summary). 
• Implore students to think about punitive vs. restorative and transformational justice as defined below:

Punitive justice (noun) - an approach to justice which holds that punishment can change behavior, that criminals will accept responsibility through punishment, and the infliction of pain will deter criminal behavior

Restorative justice (noun) - an approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by giving a chance to those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to address their needs in the aftermath of a crime

Transformational justice (noun) - an approach to justice that sees oppression as the root of all forms of harm, abuse, and assault. As a practice, it aims to address and confront oppression on all levels and treat this concept as an integral part to accountability and healing

• Split students up into breakout groups of three. One student is a reporter, one is a state legislator, and the other is a reserve reporter. With an even number of students, split students up into groups of two; the state legislator can be the reserve reporter later on. Over the course of 10 minutes, the reporter should write and ask three relevant questions to the legislator based on their understanding of the New England Journal of Medicine study’s results.
• Based on the mock interview, the reserve reporter will have five minutes to write questions for an interviewee who was just released from prison. These questions will be shared with the whole class.
• Discuss: In the transcript for the Tradeoffs episode "The Push to Bring Medicaid Behind Bars", it is mentioned that Rhode Island, Vermont, Utah, and Massachusetts would offer people in jail and prison the same Medicaid benefits as anyone else in the community. What are the implications of this approach?

Extension activities/Homework:

• Have students read these government guidelines, published in April, on improving the transition for Medicaid-eligible individuals leaving incarceration.
• Instruct students to write a news report on health care for the formerly incarcerated based on the resources used in the lesson and their understanding of different approaches to criminal justice.

Cale Holmes is an independent journalist. He’s always excited to promote media literacy and journalism education by contributing to PBS Newshour Classroom.

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