Tiffany Perkins

Bio: Tiffany Perkins is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Public health & Health care. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 390 citations.

Coming Home From Jail: The Social and Health Consequences of Community Reentry for Women, Male Adolescents, and Their Families and Communities

Abstract: Each year, more than 10 million people enter US jails, most returning home within a few weeks. Because jails concentrate people with infectious and chronic diseases, substance abuse, and mental health problems, and reentry policies often exacerbate these problems, the experiences of people leaving jail may contribute to health inequities in the low-income communities to which they return. Our study of the experiences in the year after release of 491 adolescent males and 476 adult women returning home from New York City jails shows that both populations have low employment rates and incomes and high rearrest rates. Few received services in jail. However, overall drug use and illegal activity declined significantly in the year after release. Postrelease employment and health insurance were associated with lower rearrest rates and drug use. Public policies on employment, drug treatment, housing, and health care often blocked successful reentry into society from jail, suggesting the need for new policies that support successful reentry into society.

Social determinants of mental health

Abstract: A person's mental health and many common mental disorders are shaped by various social, economic, and physical environments operating at different stages of life. Risk factors for many common mental disorders are heavily associated with social inequalities, whereby the greater the inequality the higher the inequality in risk. The poor and disadvantaged suffer disproportionately, but those in the middle of the social gradient are also affected. It is of major importance that action is taken to improve the conditions of everyday life, beginning before birth and progressing into early childhood, older childhood and adolescence, during family building and working ages, and through to older age. Action throughout these life stages would provide opportunities for both improving population mental health, and for reducing risk of those mental disorders that are associated with social inequalities. As mental disorders are fundamentally linked to a number of other physical health conditions, these actions would also reduce inequalities in physical health and improve health overall. Action needs to be universal: across the whole of society and proportionate to need. Policy-making at all levels of governance and across sectors can make a positive difference.

Incarceration as Exposure: The Prison, Infectious Disease, and Other Stress-Related Illnesses∗:

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between incarceration and health functioning. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the relationship between incarceration and more than 20 different measures of health are tested. Using multiple analytic procedures, a distinctive pattern of association emerges. Individuals with a history of incarceration appear consistently more likely to be afflicted with infectious disease and other illnesses associated with stress. In contrast, no consistent relationships were observed between incarceration status and ailments unrelated to stress or infectious disease. The results suggest that exposure to infectious disease and stress are important to understanding the lasting impact of incarceration on health.

Public Health and the Epidemic of Incarceration

Abstract: An unprecedented number of Americans have been incarcerated in the past generation. In addition, arrests are concentrated in low-income, predominantly nonwhite communities where people are more likely to be medically underserved. As a result, rates of physical and mental illnesses are far higher among prison and jail inmates than among the general public. We review the health profiles of the incarcerated; health care in correctional facilities; and incarceration's repercussions for public health in the communities to which inmates return upon release. The review concludes with recommendations that public health and medical practitioners capitalize on the public health opportunities provided by correctional settings to reach medically underserved communities, while simultaneously advocating for fundamental system change to reduce unnecessary incarceration.

Ballot Manipulation and the "Menace of Negro Domination": Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850-2002

Abstract: Criminal offenders in the United States typically forfeit voting rights as a collateral consequence of their felony convictions. This article analyzes the origins and development of these state felon disenfranchisement provisions. Because these laws tend to dilute the voting strength of racial minorities, we build on theories of group threat to test whether racial threat influenced their passage. Many felon voting bans were passed in the late 1860s and 1870s, when implementation of the Fifteenth Amendment and its extension of voting rights to African‐Americans were ardently contested. We find that large nonwhite prison populations increase the odds of passing restrictive laws, and, further, that prison and state racial composition may be linked to the adoption of reenfranchisement reforms. These findings are important for understanding restrictions on the civil rights of citizens convicted of crime and, more generally, the role of racial conflict in American political development.

The Impact of Incarceration on Employment during the Transition to Adulthood

Abstract: The research findings with respect to the relationship between incarceration and employment are consistent enough that it is tempting to conclude that incarceration causes deterioration in ex-inmates' employment prospects. Yet, causality remains tenuous for several reasons. For one, studies frequently rely on samples of nonincarcerated subjects that are not truly "at risk" of incarceration, which undermines their use as comparison samples and potentially biases estimates of the impact of incarceration on life outcomes. Additionally, even with confidence about causal identification, the field remains ignorant about the precise mechanism by which incarceration erodes employment and earnings. To address these gaps, this study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate the impact of incarceration during late adolescence and early adulthood on short- and long-term employment outcomes. The subjects of interest are all individuals who are convicted of a crime for the first time, some of whom receive a sentence of incarceration following their conviction. Broad measures of legal and illegal employment are used to explore possible avenues by which incarceration affects individual work histories.