Racial Disparities in Health and Justice System Exposure

This chapter explores patterns of racial/ethnic disparity within two institutional venues, health and criminal justice. It shows that people of color, especially African Americans, bear a disproportionate burden of various negative health outcomes as well as outsized exposure to criminal justice system confinement. Theories that offer potential explanations for both the general association between health and incarceration and for the similarity of patterns of racial disparity in these phenomena are discussed. The chapter concludes with recommendations of ways to remedy the health and criminal justice inequities that have been a persistent and unwelcome fact of American society for many decades.