The overrepresentation of people of color and individuals with serious mental illnesses across all levels of the criminal legal system results from the effects of social and economic forces, including social determinants of health and behavioral health, as well as systemic racism. Conversely, criminal legal contact creates and exacerbates these social stresses, with associated consequences to general medical and behavioral health. In this column, the authors explore the relationship between social determinants of health and criminal legal contact through the lens of recent literature on criminal recidivism and describe the ways in which criminal legal contact is itself a social determinant that drives mental health outcomes.
Keywords: Criminal justice; Jails and prisons; Sociopolitical Issues; Structural racism; mental health services.