Mental and Physical Health of Incarcerated Populations 

Mental and Physical Health of Incarcerated Populations

The prison population of the United States has quadrupled in the past 25 years, and the country now incarcerates
more people per capita than any other nation. Many inmates with serious chronic
physical illness fail to receive care while incarcerated. Among inmates with mental
illness, most were off their treatments at the time of the arrest. Improvements are needed
both in correctional health care and in community mental health services that might
prevent crime and incarceration. Analyze the literature addressing the health status of
incarcerated populations. Do current health care services properly address these issues?
What do advocates recommend?

Write a four to five page paper, excluding title and bibliography pages, and including at least five references
and a bibliography page. Your review of the literature on each topic should include 5 or 6 academic articles,
official statistics/records, and educated opinion pieces.
Include bibliography and in-text citations in the paper.
Include a thesis statement and analysis of the literature you have included in your research. To analyze means
to break a topic or concept down into its parts in order to inspect and understand it. For example, you could
analyze the role of the mother in the ancient Egyptian family. You could break down that topic into its parts–the
mother’s duties in the family, social status, and expected role in the larger society–and research those parts.
You will research those parts in order to present your general perspective and conclusion about the topic. Your
general perspective will become your synthesis of the material. Synthesis means to restructure the parts of
your analysis in a way that makes sense to you. In an analytical research paper, you do research to become an
expert on a topic so that you can restructure and present the parts of the topic from your own perspective.
Finally, you will develop a personal conclusion about the topic. The conclusion is intended to understand why
your research should matter. A conclusion is a synthesis of key points and, if applicable, where you
recommend new areas for future research. For most essays, one well-developed paragraph is sufficient for a
conclusion, although in some cases, a two or three paragraph conclusion may be required.