Recidivism and the Availability of Health Care Organizations

Incarceration has been identified as a cause of poor health in current and former prisoners. Furthermore, ex-prisoners often live in disadvantaged neighborhoods that are health-resource poor. Scant research examines the relationship between the availability of health care services and criminal offending. Given the relationship between incarceration and health, it is plausible that health service availability is related to subsequent offending and incarceration. In this study, we investigate the relationship between the availability of health care organizations (HCOs) and their changes over time with neighborhood level recidivism, and how these relationships may be moderated by neighborhood disadvantage. Results demonstrate that the effect of HCOs on recidivism is moderated through disadvantage: as disadvantage increases, the negative effect of losing significant amounts of HCOs on recidivism accelerates. Our results suggest that while increasing HCOs in disadvantaged neighborhoods is important, keeping HCOs in place is equally important for moderating negative neighborhood level outcomes