A stepwise guide for healthcare professionals requesting compassionate release for patients who are incarcerated

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPH-09-2021-0095
• Published date: 14 July 2022
• Date: 14 July 2022
• Pages: 77-87
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Prisoner health,Sociology,Sociology of crime & law,Public policy & environmental management,Policing,Criminal justice
• Author: Alexa Kanbergs,Ilana Garcia-Grossman,Cyrus Ahalt,Michele DiTomas,Rachael Bedard,Brie Williams

A stepwise guide for healthcare

professionals requesting compassionate

release for patients who are incarcerated

Alexa Kanbergs, Ilana Garcia-Grossman, Cyrus Ahalt, Michele DiTomas, Rachael Bedard

and Brie Williams

Abstract

Purpose –Compassionate release is a process that allows for the early releaseor parole of some incarcerated

people of advanced age, with life-limiting illness, complex medical care needs or significant functional decline.

Despite the expansion of State and Federal compassionate release programs, this mechanism for release

remains underutilized. Health-care professionals are central to the process of recommending compassionate

release, but few resources exist to support these efforts. The purpose of this paper is to provide a guide for

health-care professionals requesting compassionate release for patients who are incarcerated.

Design/methodology/approach –This studyis stepwise guide for health-careprofessionals requesting

compassionaterelease for patients who areincarcerated.

Findings –This study describes the role of the health-care professional in requesting compassionate

release and offers guidance to help them navigate the process of preparing a medical declaration or

requestfor compassionate release.

Originality/value –No prior publicationshave created a step-wise guide of this natureto aid health-care

professionalsthrough the compassionaterelease process.

Keywords Prison, Aging, COVID-19, Compassionate release, Advancedcare planning,

Medical release

Paper type General review

Introduction

The US prison population has aged significantly over the past two decades in the setting of

profoundly long sentences and an era of mass incarceration (Williams et al., 2021). Between

1993 and 2003, the number of people aged 55 or older in state prisons grew by 400% (Vera

Institute of Justice, 2018). Incarcerated older adults experience high rates and an early onset of

chronic disease and geriatric conditions at relatively younger ages compared with the non-

incarcerated population (Greene et al.,2018;Maruschak et al., 2015;Psick et al.,2017). These

medical conditions also put incarcerated older adults at an elevated risk of poor outcomes due

to COVID-19 infection (Prost et al., 2021). As a result, incarcerated people aged 50y ears or

older experienced the highest rates of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, intensive care unit

(ICU) admissions and deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021;Chin et al.,

2021). The combination of an aging prison population and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted

in an exponential rise in the number of incarcerated people who die each year from medical

illness (Prost et al., 2021;Rorvig and Williams, 2021a).

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and virtually all state

departments of corrections had enacted policies and/or procedures that allow for the early

release or parole of some incarcerated people of advanced age, with life-limiting illness or

Alexa Kanbergs is based at

the Department of

Obstetrics and

Gynecology, Brigham and

Women’s Hospital, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA and

Department of Obstetrics

and Gynecology,

Massachusetts General

Hospital, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA.

Ilana Garcia-Grossman and

Cyrus Ahalt are both based

at the Department of

Medicine, University of

California San Francisco,

San Francisco, California,

USA. Michele DiTomas is

based at the California

Correctional Healthcare

Services, Elk Grove,

California, USA. Rachael

Bedard is based at Division

of Correctional Health

Services, NYC Health þ

Hospitals, New York, New

York, USA.

Brie Williams is based at

the Department of

Medicine, University of

California

San Francisco, San

Francisco, California, USA.

Received 17 September 2021

Revised 3 January 2022

9 March 2022

Accepted 22 June 2022

DOI 10.1108/IJPH-09-2021-0095 VOL. 19 NO. 1 2023, pp. 77-87, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1744-9200 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRISONER HEALTH jPAGE 77