Lack of Information on Surgical Care for Incarcerated Persons

With 2.2 million incarcerated people, the United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world.¹ This mass incarceration is recent, arising from the war on drugs and punitive sentencing policies that began in the 1970s.¹ Ethnic minorities and the poor have been disproportionately affected by this increase: more than half of the incarcerated people in the United States are black or Hispanic race/ethnicity.¹ Mandatory minimum sentences have ensured that the incarcerated population has aged as it has grown; between 1992 and 2012, the prevalence of incarcerated people aged 55 years or older increased by 550%.²