Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, PhD, writes in this commentary that overcrowding at U.S. prisons, jails and other detention facilities not only leads to negative health outcomes for individual residents, but exacerbates chronic physical and mental health conditions and increases demands for already limited healthcare delivery.

Goldhaber-Fiebert, professor of health policy, uses data analytics, decision science and simulation modeling to examine infectious disease epidemiology in California state prisons. He writes in this editorial accompanying an article in the American Journal of Public Health on health care and mortality in California prisons, that regardless of one’s view of incarceration, “the body of evidence shows that incarcerating people in overcrowded facilities impedes their access to health care, exposes them to increased risks, and harms their health in numerous ways; it is simply cruel and unjustifiable.”

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