Before he went to prison, Ernest killed his 2-year-old daughter in the grip of a psychotic delusion. When the Indiana Department of Correction released him in 2015, he was terrified something awful might happen again. He had to see a doctor. He had only a month's worth of pills to control his delusions and mania. He was desperate for insurance coverage. But the state failed to enroll him in Medicaid, although under the Affordable Care Act Indiana had expanded the health insurance program to...

The Washington, D.C., jail has big metal doors that slam shut. It looks and feels like a jail. But down a hall in the medical wing, past an inmate muttering about suicide, there's a room that looks like an ordinary doctor's office. "OK, deep breaths in and out for me," Dr. Reggie Egins says to his patient, Sean Horn, an inmate in his 40s. They talk about how his weight has changed in his six weeks in jail, how his medications are working out and whether he's noticed anything different about...

The Department of Justice announced last week a bundle of prison reforms aimed at easing the transition for ex-prisoners back into the outside world. The measures include the creation of a school district within the federal prison network, reforming halfway houses, and providing funds to ensure that every former inmate is issued a state ID upon re-entering society at large. If that last reform seems surprising, it shouldn’t be: Most people leaving prisons don’t have state identification,...

It’s a common lament of the nation’s police officers and prison wardens alike: A large proportion of the crime suspects and inmates they find themselves dealing with suffer from mental illness, substance-abuse issues, or both. Today, a coalition of organizations spanning justice and health interests are launching a new campaign to focus on what they call “behavioral health issues in the criminal justice system.” At a meeting in Washington, D.C., the groups are issuing what they termed...

Excerpt 1: TULSA, Okla. — The women’s wing of the jail here exhales sadness. The inmates, wearing identical orange uniforms, ache as they undergo withdrawal from drugs, as they eye one another suspiciously, and as they while away the days stripped of freedom, dignity, privacy and, most painful of all, their children. “She’s disappointed in me,” Janay Manning, 29, a drug offender shackled to a wall for an interview, said of her eldest daughter, a 13-year-old. And then she started crying, and...

n the sullen basement of Louisville’s Hall of Justice, families reunite on a Sunday night. Scattered about, women and toddlers and a few others sometimes wait hours to see a loved one incarcerated in the next building over. No cuddles or hugs will occur during their few moments together. Just a picture on the screen and a voice through a phone give the most basic form of contact. While they bide their time, men on house arrest snake through a large gray room outlined with maroon plastic...

A program called Tender Loving Canines is among the new and restored rehabilitation courses popping up in California state prisons since Gov. Jerry Brown began emphasizing programs that help inmates prepare to reenter society. Hector Amezcua The Sacramento Bee Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article111664572.html#storylink=cpy When a pair of puppies stepped into a state prison’s highest security yard on a scorching summer day, dozens of felons...

Hundreds of people committed to helping former offenders successfully return to their communities were energized and ready to get back to work after a recent event, when one state official paused to point out how far California has come in the past few years. “This is a mammoth shift,” Linda Penner proclaimed about how California’s governmental agencies are working with community-based organizations (CBOs) to ensure successful reentry from incarceration to the community. As chair of the...

A job training program at the East Mesa Detention and Re‐entry Facility is taking root at county parks. Trees and plants that were cultivated and grown at the jail’s greenhouse will be planted by inmates at five parks all over the county this month. The job training program started in July 2014 to help inmates develop skills and work habits needed to secure honest employment after their release, according to a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department news release. An instructor from...

Artist Alex Cook often paints his murals in schools and public places, not correctional facilities. But the three-word message of his art projects is perhaps just as valuable for jail inmates as for anyone else. That’s why Sandy Haase of Yorba Linda wanted Cook to create a mural in the Orange County Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana. Haase has volunteered with the Orange County jails since 1986, helping with religious services and acting as an assistant chaplain. She discovered Cook online.

In nearly three years, Dominic Walker rarely looked another human being in the eye. Except for showers, he left his cell at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles only once a week, to exercise in a small cage resembling a dog kennel. His conversations were typically shouted through cell bars to other inmates in his row. “It makes you feel like nobody. I’m here, the walls are closing in. It makes you hallucinate,” said Walker, 34, who was released in June after prosecutors dropped his...

As a middle aged, naive and wide eyed kid with a new mission, that of addressing the many behavioral issues we faced in our Alaska Native Community, I focused on what I referred to as restoring responsible fatherhood to families. As the son of an absent father, I believed that the simple act of re engaging fathers with their children could have immediate results. Well, as I discovered, nothing is easy, especially in the field of corrections. I did start a fatherhood initiative for Alaska...