At a time when the percentage of American adults serving time behind bars has reached an all time high, a study published in the New England Journal Of Medicine found that recently released prisoners suffer a risk of dying during the first two weeks following release is 12.7 times greater than other persons.
The study found that the two-week reentry period was extremely critical for former prisoners, many of died from a variety of causes such as drug overdose, cardiovascular disease, homicide and suicide.
The lives of over 30,000 prisoners freshly released from the Washington State Department of Corrections were monitored for 1.9 years following their release from July 1999 through December 2003. The rate of mortality during the 1.9 month follow-up period was a risk of death 3.5 times that of other state residents.
The majority of those in the study were non-Hispanic whites (62 percent), despite the fact that non-whites generally make up a disproportionate number of prison populations. The authors also noted that the study pertained only to a prison system in a single state in the United States, Washington, and that a wide variety of socio-economic and demographic factors could drastically affect the results of the study.
The study pointed to the stressful rigors faced by former prisoners during the reentry period as they are forced to locate housing and employment and access to health care, while also attempting to reintegrate into their families and communities.
The leading cause of death among prisoners in the study group during the 1.9-year follow-up period was 103 deaths due to drug overdose, caused primarily by cocaine use. Other leading causes of overdose deaths in the group were methamphetamine (19), heroin (18) and methadone (18).
The second leading cause of death (56) was due to cardiovascular related issues, followed by homicides with 54 deaths.
It was noted that efforts to reduce the high mortality rates of newly released prisoners should include interventions focused on transitional planning. Such planning would include work-release and drug-treatment programs, halfway houses and improving access to mental and medical health care for newly released former prisoners.
