The network Regional Congregations and Neighborhood Organizations has established the Public Health Reentry Project to address the growing number of parolees returning to Los Angeles County under the unhealthiest circumstances. Los Angeles County is the epicenter of the nation’s rapidly growing population of parolees. According to a U.S. Department of Justice study, Los Angeles County receives more releases from prison than any other county in the United States. About 30 percent of California’s parolees crowd into its low-income neighborhoods.
This devastating fact can no longer be regarded as solely a public safety crisis. RCNO is a national faith- and community-based organizing network that builds the capacities of faith- and community-based agencies to engage in organizing and public policy initiatives that produce program innovations.
When parolees arrive in these neighborhoods, they are in far poorer health than the county’s general population. For example, parolees in Los Angeles County experience:
- A 4 times higher rate of active tuberculosis.
- A 9-10 times higher rate of hepatitis C.
- A 5 times higher rate of AIDS.
- A 1.5 -5 times higher rate of mental illness.
Many of the parolees’ illnesses go undiagnosed and untreated by prison physicians. To exacerbate the problem, California’s prison-based health care system does not prepare parolees to use public and private health clinics in the counties where they will reside. There is no coordination between counties and prisons in planning for the continued care of inmates after they are released.
Most parolees do not have medical insurance or stable sources of medical services. Eligible parolees may sign up for various programs but few do, often because they are unable to complete required application forms, do not possess appropriate personal identification documents, and/or have no permanent address. If parolees do succeed in applying for public health insurance programs, they often experience long delays while their enrollments are finalized.
The several thousands of parolees that reside in Los Angeles County’s most impoverished neighborhoods escalate the serious health care problems that already exist. The entire county, in fact, is “medically stressed.” About one sixth of the nation’s uninsured live in California. In Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million residents (25 percent of the non-elderly population) are uninsured at some time during the year. As a strategy for dealing with its $2.1 billion deficit, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services is considering the closure of all of the remaining comprehensive and personal health centers.
Religious congregations are well situated to address the serious health issues created by parolees in low-income neighborhoods. They enjoy, along with public schools, a highly visible presence in these neighborhoods. As many as 35 congregations per square mile exist in some Central Los Angeles neighborhoods. Many congregations are very small, but they are virtually everywhere: on every major street, in office buildings, and in homes.
Their community leadership cannot be disputed. Almost all of them offer services such as emergency food, clothing, and shelter, transportation, drug and alcohol interventions, counseling, job placement, family violence intervention, literary education, and so on. RCNO recognizes that all congregations, regardless of size or denomination, possess human, intellectual, and spiritual capital to engage in faith-based community organizing.
Since 1994, the RCNO’s network of congregations in Los Angeles County has addressed the needs of parolees and incarcerated people, and currently have a network of 120 congregations. The RCNO’s Public Health Reentry Project is driven by a moral/spiritual vision -- a vision that is consistent with the long-term missions of congregations in low-income neighborhoods. The project assumes that formerly incarcerated persons can become community assets. Although they bring unbearable health care burdens to their neighborhoods, they can fortify families and can resurrect the fragile communities that receive them socially, politically, and economically.
RCNO has created a public health policy task force composed of representatives from Los Angeles County criminal justice agencies, health and human service agencies, and colleges/universities. The task force’s discussions about proposals will focus on:
- The need for increased access by parolees to free or reduced-cost medical services.
- Access to community-based health education and preventive health services.
- Expansion of public awareness to public policies that affect parolees.
- Reduction of barriers to expanded health services for parolees.
- Protecting and bolstering the capacity of community-based and public health care clinics to serve parolees.
- More effective coordination between prison-based medical services and public health resources that serve parolees.
- Encouragement of county participation in public/community-based coalitions that serve parolees.
RCNO’s network of congregational and community organizations will actively support their own and others’ public policy recommendations, as well as organize networks of team players to support the reentry health care needs of parolees.
In its Public Health Reentry Project, RCNO is assuming an unprecedented role. The project is a first-of-a-kind in urban America, especially in its comprehensive approach. They are also launching smaller task forces in San Diego, Riverside, and Alameda counties.