STIs, Reentry & The Role of State Public Health Officers

Highlighted Stories

Editor's Note

This week's highlighted article from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) examines continuity of care through the lens of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The organization has developed a practical resource for State Public Health Officers designed to help individuals leaving correctional facilities connect with healthcare providers, continue needed treatment, and communicate important health information after release. The document also encourages Medicaid enrollment, connects individuals with community health resources, and seeks to reduce the stigma that can discourage people from seeking care.

The importance of continuity of care cannot be overstated when discussing STIs. Interrupted treatment, missed follow-up care, and the failure to connect individuals with community healthcare providers increase the likelihood that communicable diseases remain untreated after release, creating consequences that extend well beyond correctional facilities. In that sense, continuity of care is not simply a correctional healthcare issue—it is a public health issue.

COCHS has often viewed continuity of care through the framework of Medicaid, but the ASTHO guidance reminds us that healthcare coverage is only one component of successful reentry. Equally important are the connections among correctional facilities, community healthcare providers, public health departments, and the individuals themselves. Strengthening those connections benefits not only the person leaving incarceration but also the communities to which they return.

COCHS would also like to highlight another aspect of the ASTHO recommendations. Until now, public health departments have rarely figured prominently in our discussions of the relationship between correctional and community healthcare. STIs, however, are fundamentally a public health concern. By emphasizing the role of public health authorities in coordinating care after release, ASTHO recognizes that correctional healthcare is not simply the responsibility of correctional systems or healthcare providers. Rather, it recognizes public health departments as another essential partner in strengthening connectivity between correctional facilities and the communities to which individuals return.

Individuals leaving correctional facilities often face significant challenges in accessing health care services after release, including sexual health services and STI-related care. ASTHO identified a need for a practical, stigma-reducing resource that supports continuity of care and helps connect people to STI and health care services following incarceration.

Follow Ups

Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets

Editor's Comment: We have had many stories about the Executive Order, Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets, they generally fall into two categories. The first concerns the civil commitment of homeless individuals and the efforts of some jurisdictions to create facilities to house them. For example, Salt Lake City is planning a campus for individuals experiencing homelessness. The second category concerns the reduction or denial of federal funding to organizations whose activities run counter to the Executive Order. Recent examples we have covered include programs emphasizing Housing First and harm reduction.

The Epstein Becker Green resource included below makes this distinction explicit. It explains that civil commitment is primarily a function of state—not federal—government and provides a useful overview of the legal framework. It also discusses what may prove to be the Executive Order's most immediate effect: changes in the distribution of federal funding. We are including this resource because it provides our subscribers with a broader overview of the Executive Order and its implications.

President Trump’s Executive Order 14321, Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets (“EO 14321”) has sharpened a long-running national debate over when the government may compel treatment; the tension is often described as one between care and coercion. But EO 14321’s practical effect runs less through new legal standards, which remain a matter of state law, than through federal funding conditions.

Local Jurisdictions & ICE

Editor's Comment: Back in our March 17, 2026, Follow Up, we discussed how San Diego County health officials were prevented from inspecting the Otay Mesa Detention Center, then owned by CoreCivic. (CoreCivic has since sold the facility to the federal government but continues to manage it.) We also noted a California law authorizing county health officers to inspect private detention facilities. The question of whether state and local health officials have the authority to inspect ICE detention facilities remains contentious. In the Akses article below, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson asserts the state's authority to investigate detention facilities operated by GEO Group. ICE, however, takes a different position. In a procurement document seeking to expand private detention capacity, the agency asserts that state and local laws do not apply to the operation of its detention facilities.

The following article from Indiana Lawyer adds another dimension to this debate. It reports that ICE Director David Venturella acknowledged that the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana, which began housing detained individuals last October, has yet to receive a compliance inspection from ICE's own detention oversight office. If states and localities are prevented from conducting inspections while federal oversight has yet to occur, questions naturally arise about who, if anyone, is ensuring that these facilities comply with applicable standards?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expanding its private detention capacity. Federal procurement records reveal that ICE published draft contract terms on July 10 for 5,500 detention beds across four regional jurisdictions, including Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami, and Denver. The proposal includes provisions declaring that state and local laws shall not apply to facility operations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided new details on conditions inside the Indiana prison contracted to hold immigration detainees amid reported widespread medical shortfalls. ICE Director David Venturella said the Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana, which began its contract to hold immigration detainees in October, has not yet received a compliance inspection from ICE’s detention oversight office. The initial inspection is scheduled for mid-September. The letter came days after an IndyStar investigation detailed inadequate medical conditions for ICE detainees at the facility. That included widespread health care staff vacancies and evidence of service backlogs far higher than what contractor Centurion Health reported to the state.

Revolving Door

Editor's Comment: In the not-too-distant past, Wellpath and Corizon/YesCare dominated the Weekly Update's coverage of proprietary correctional healthcare vendors. Following the bankruptcies of both companies, that attention now appears to be shifting to VitalCore. As the articles below illustrate, with that prominence come familiar questions about the quality of care, the cost of contracts, and transparency. In Michigan, a man alleges that as he was being shuffled between county facilities and state prison (where VitalCore replaced Wellpath as the provider) his multiple sclerosis went untreated. In Mississippi, VitalCore has been awarded more than $600 million in state contracts while it is reported incarcerated people with hepatitis C are not receiving treatment until their conditions become so severe that they require liver transplants. In Massachusetts, VitalCore has refused to provide records to the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, arguing that, as a private company, it is not subject to the state's public records law.

We are not sure that the rise and fall of individual vendors is of particular interest to our subscribers, but at COCHS we believe there is value in following these companies over time. As we have often reported, correctional healthcare contracts routinely involve hundreds of millions—and sometimes billions—of taxpayer dollars. They are also frequently accompanied by costly litigation, allegations of inadequate care, and continuing questions about oversight and accountability.

An incarcerated man, Shane Veltkamp, while at Newaygo County Jail was transported to a hospital where he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He claims his condition worsened as he was moved around the county jail and four prisons. He has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court. It is asserted that Newaygo County Jail and Advanced Correctional Healthcare ignored his condition. The suit also includes VitalCore which has contract with the Michigan Department of Corrections. VitalCore took over after Michigan severed its contract with Wellpath, the previous prison healthcare provider, over a “dismal performance.”

Mississippi's effort to monitor prison healthcare where VitalCore is the contracted provider appears to have stalled. Although lawmakers required annual reports evaluating the state's medical services contract and approved more than $700,000 for Butler Snow to monitor prison healthcare, no monitoring report has yet been delivered. House Corrections Chairwoman Becky Currie has expressed growing frustration, particularly over the lack of treatment for thousands of incarcerated people with hepatitis C or delaying treatment until the only option is a liver transplant. VitalCore has been awarded over $600 million in state contracts.

In a complaint filed in Suffolk County Superior Court, the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee (MHLAC) — an independent state agency in the judicial branch — said the department is obligated by state public records law to make the private contractor's data available. In December, the MHLAC sought data from DOC about requests for medical and mental healthcare. The department responded that it did not have the information and recommended that the agency contact VitalCore, a private company with a $770 million contract to provide healthcare to prisoners at 10 Massachusetts correctional facilities. When the MHLAC turned to VitalCore, however, VitalCore refused to provide the requested records, stating that because it is a private company, it is not obliged to comply with public records law.

Arizona

Editor's Comment: The Arizona receivership story is back. The plaintiffs are asking Judge Roslyn Silver to appoint the receiver immediately rather than wait for the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry's appeal to run its course. The department, of course, disagrees, arguing that installing a receiver before the appeal is resolved will result in unnecessary expense. The plaintiffs are unconvinced. They point out that any additional costs would be covered by the contempt funds Judge Silver has already imposed on the department for failing to comply with the court's orders.

Once again we are struck by how reactive and cumbersome the judicial process can be when it is called upon to reform correctional healthcare. Years of litigation, repeated findings of noncompliance, contempt sanctions, appeals, and now an appeal over the appointment of a receivership illustrate just how difficult it can be to implement meaningful change through the courts, especially when there is resistance from both the DOC and state officials.

The attorneys for inmates involved in a long-running lawsuit over who will control the state prison healthcare system are arguing that the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry has had enough time to improve, and that a takeover should proceed. In its motion to the court, the department claimed it would suffer the loss of a core state function and shell out irrecoverable funds if it fronts the bill for receivership before the issue is completely settled in the courts. But Sophie Hart, attorney with the Prison Law Office, stated the financial harm alleged by the ADCRR could at least initially be offset by the $2.2 million in contempt fines it already paid to the court. She urged Silver to allow the receivership to take effect immediately.

ICE

Oversight mechanisms of ICE facilities have been gutted, members of Congress have been turned away, and ICE has stopped reporting basic and legally mandated data. Pople in a now shuttered camp in Florida were allegedly subjected to a two-by-two-foot outdoor punishment cage.

One way in which counties and other municipalities work with the Department of Homeland Security is via the 287(g) program. These are separate agreements from those counties enter into with U.S. Marshals in order to hold DHS detainees in local jails.

Campbell County Detention Center, Kentucky

Outside the Campbell County Detention Center in Newport, three U.S. representatives said on Monday they witnessed inhumane treatment inside the facility — and called for better access to medical care, food options and bedding. “This is a business,” said Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore from Milwaukee. “It's a business cutting corners, like not having good food, not differentiating, not meeting people with medical needs, not having a doctor on duty. We see a lot of cost cutting here, and we definitely don't understand it, given the billions of dollars that we have allocated.”

Camp East Montana, Texas

ICE plans to keep one of its largest and most expensive detention facilities, Camp East Montana, open for at least another year despite calls to close it over reported human rights abuses. ICE is extending the no-bid contract with Amentum Services which runs the detention center.

Grayson County Detention Center

A brother of a woman detained by federal immigration agents in Louisville said she has been denied proper medical care for sickle cell anemia while being held in a Kentucky jail. Sarafinah Bukirwa, 31, was on her way to a sickle cell anemia conference when her brother, Isaac Kabunga, dropped her off at the Louisville airport. Bukirwa opened a nonprofit during the pandemic, Sarafinah Sickle Cell Cell Society.

State Roundup

Alabama

People who spent decades incarcerated within Alabama’s prisons provided a detailed account of ongoing violence, abuse by corrections staff and lack of adequate healthcare services in the state’s correctional facilities. Prior to the public hearing, Rachel Riddle, chief examiner with the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts, told committee members that her staff is having trouble obtaining documents from ADOC. Both Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa and Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, wore shirts that called for the prosecution of YesCare. The company the lost its contract with ADOC for breach of contract. See last week’s Editor’s Note: Rep. Chris England calls for a criminal investigation of YesCare.

California

California prisons are increasingly relying on an unusual fire alarm system: humans. Between 2020 and 2025, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has spent nearly $50 million on “fire watch” staffing costs. The majority of California’s 31 prisons have deficient fire alarm systems and it would cost $1.5 billion to replace them all.

Michigan

Michigan, the Department of Correction's only women's prison, getting medical attention means fighting through a wall of institutional skepticism. Even after five women died at the facility this year.

Oklahoma

Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols said the city will immediately close its municipal jail. The announcement comes one day after The Frontier published a story and video showing the final hours of Justin Benner, who died at the jail in September 2025 after detention officers placed him in a full-body restraint device and left him alone in a cell. The mayor also announced he will seek to expedite all outstanding open records requests related to the jail. The city has previously refused to release records to The Frontier related to deaths at the facility. Note: Here is the previous Journal Record's report on Mr. Benner's death: Lawsuit over Tulsa city jail death alleges officials ignored years of warnings about medical care.

South Carolina

After a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 exposed horrific conditions for the mentally ill in the South Carlina's prison system, the department shoveled attention and resources into improving their care and quality of life. “I'd say it's a seismic shift from where we were,” said former Corrections Director Bryan Stirling, who spearheaded these reforms.

Texas

Ten years ago, Sandra Bland was pulled over outside Prairie View for failing to signal a lane change. Three days later she was dead in a Waller County jail cell, held on a fine-only offense that should never have put her behind bars. Texas answered with one of the more substantive criminal justice reforms, the Sandra Bland Act. The laws requires independent investigation only when someone dies in custody. That wording has created an opening, and some jails have used it: Get the person out of custody before the death is recorded.

There have been 17 deaths at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center. In apparent violation of the Sandra Bland Act, Bexar County Sheriff's deputies conducted the death investigations themselves. The Sheriff's Office has downplayed its involvement. In 2023, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) completed an investigation concluding that Bexar County deputies had participated in the investigations and referred the matter to the Bexar County Precinct 2 Constable's Office for review. The San Antonio Express-News requested the investigative records, but Bexar County has successfully withheld them, citing "a pending criminal investigation."

A coalition of local nonprofits held a press conference outside the Bexar County Courthouse calling for major changes at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center, saying the county’s handling of people in custody needs to change. Speakers said the issues range from access to medical and mental health care to detox protocols, accountability and transparency.

Technology

The Allegheny County Jail last week began using wearable biometric tracking devices to monitor medically vulnerable people incarcerated at the facility. The technology, called OverWatch, provides jail administrators with real-time information.

Harris County is exploring the use of artificial intelligence-equipped surveillance cameras inside the county jail to improve inmate monitoring, detect emergencies more quickly, and reduce staff workload.

A man incarcerated in a New Jersey prison has sued the state in a bid to block corrections officials from forcing prisoners to surrender personal electronic tablets they purchased to message loved ones. The dispute comes as the state Department of Corrections switches to a new provider, ViaPath Technologies. JPay had supplied services since 2014

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is out with a scam warning for inmates and their families, urging them to be cautious following reports of phony emails posing as her. Nessel’s office says there have been recent reports of fraudulent emails sent through JPay – a platform that allows family and friends to send electronic messages to incarcerated individuals – including emails claiming to be from the Attorney General.