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Abstract: 

Despite its many conceptual and operational problems, litigation has provided the best impetus for reform of our correctional health system. This issue of Correctional Mental Health Report explores some of the important ways litigation has been used to improve the delivery of health care in prisons and jails, and in this introductory commentary, the report’s executive editor, Fred Cohen, examines the legal framework—trial and appellate litigation, constitutional principles and protections, and court-appointed outside expertise and monitoring—in which these essential reforms have taken place. Cohen’s conclusion is that we must pay far more attention than we currently do to the implementation and evaluation phases of the litigation-structural reform approach.

Keywords: Graves v. Penzone; Rasho v. Walker; Training; First Step Act

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.