Public Health and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Approximately two-thirds of America’s incarcerated population suffers with untreated or undertreated substance use disorders, and many of those individuals commit several crimes related to drug use and addiction on a daily basis prior to being incarcerated. To end the opioid epidemic in the United States we not only need to bolster our health care and public health response to substance use disorders, we need to engage the criminal justice system as a specific touchpoint for public health intervention in communities and states across the country. The principal argument in the chapter is that while individuals with opioid and/or other substance use disorders should get treatment before ever being involved in crime—if they are justice-involved, it is imperative that the criminal justice system serve as a belated but necessary public health and health care intervention supportive of treatment, recovery, and prevention of addiction.