Conducting Health Research in Carceral Systems: Considerations and Recommendations

Abstract

Although the number of people incarcerated in the United States has grown dramatically, research on how incarceration affects individuals and the communities they return to has lagged behind. This may be because of the unique challenges of doing research within carceral systems and the relatively small number of investigators who are competent to undertake these efforts.We provide a primer for investigators with limited experience conducting research in carceral settings and highlight considerations and recommendations that may aid those conducting health research with incarcerated persons. We follow this with an illustrative case example exemplifying how the considerations apply to recent health research that our team conducted on mental illness prevalence in a large regional jail.Understanding how to effectively conduct research with criminal justice populations and systems is the first step in beginning to understand the effects of mass incarceration as a driver of health disparities and health inequity.