Policy & Advocacy

Research, Community Organizing, Lobbying

Working to eliminate disparities between prisoner health and public health

Center for Health Justice's Policy & Advocacy Program seeks to eliminate disparities between prisoner health and public health. Led by Mary Sylla, JD, MPH, our team conducts research to demonstrate the effectiveness of HIV prevention and treatment strategies in correctional facilities. We also build coalitions with community partners, government entities, and corrections officers to develop and advance policies that will support efforts to empower people infected with or at risk for HIV to make healthier choices.

Center for Health Justice is also engaged in the relevant policy discussions in California as well as in Washington, D.C. More specifically, we are focused on the following key policy opportunities.

• Expanding Access to Condoms in Correctional Facilities – Condoms and other “sexual barrier devices” highly effective in preventing the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections yet most correctional facilities refuse to make them available to prisoners. Our policy and advocacy team is playing a lead role in advancing legislation to expand access to “sexual barrier devices” in California (AB 1334) and Federal prisons (HR 178).
  
  
• Improving HIV treatment in Jails and Prisons - The simplest and most cost-effective way to address the HIV epidemic is through education and primary care providers, but incarcerated populations generally lack formal schooling and adequate healthcare. Hence, in-custody programs often mark their first and only opportunity for HIV prevention education and in the best teachable moment: when constituents are sober, contemplative, and in single sex environments. Center for Health Justice's Policy & Advocacy team works to improve the provision of medications to prisoners by advocating greater community access to prisons. We also work to increase prisoner access to new HIV medications by reforming the way pharmaceuticals are currently purchased in correctional facilities.
  
  
• Encouraging Collaborations between Community and Prisoner Health Services Providers - Center for Health Justice's Policy & Advocacy Program works to encourage and support efforts to involve community medical service providers in prisoner care by brokering relationships between community and corrections medical service providers and facilitating their ongoing collaboration.
  
  
• Advocating for More HIV Prevention in Correctional Settings - Center for Health Justice's Policy & Advocacy Program encourages expanded testing and other HIV prevention efforts inside prisons. We currently support Congresswoman Maxine Water’s efforts at the federal level (H.R. 1943) and our working to improve similar legislation in the California State Legislature (AB 66).