Health and Wellbeing are Foundational for Successful Reentry

Part I:

We like to think of ourselves as a compassionate society. However, when it comes to people who have been through the carceral system, empathy often falls to the bottom of our priorities. From a young age, many of us are taught to divide the world into “good” people and “bad” people, assuming that life outcomes are simply the result of personal choices. While personal choices do matter, this is an oversimplified and dehumanizing mindset. It distances us from the unique challenges faced by people who have been incarcerated, and hides the systemic barriers, particularly around healthcare, that make reentry extraordinarily difficult. Recognizing both structural harm and personal agency allows us to meet people where they are.

Every year, approximately 500-700 people are released from prisons across the state and return to Dane County to restart their lives (Nehemiah, 2022), a process known as reentry. However, foundational facets of their well-being, like shelter, income, and food, are oftentimes inaccessible to formerly incarcerated people as they reenter society. These basic needs are essential for successful reentry, but are often difficult to access due to stigma, untreated mental illness, and legal restrictions. As such, mental and physical wellbeing can suffer, which creates poor outcomes for both individuals and the community.

Nehemiah’s newest research project is happening in partnership with University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, School of Medicine and Public Health, and Department for Family Medicine and Community Health. The project focuses on three questions: 

1. What are the barriers to healthcare access for people who have experienced incarceration? 
2. How do these barriers impact their overall wellbeing?
3. How can we reduce or eliminate those barriers to increase access to healthcare to improve outcomes, overall health, and emotional well-being? 

When we talk about healthcare, we mean both physical and mental wellness. Living a meaningful and satisfying life depends on emotional stability and physical wellness, which requires having reliable access to healthcare. Conversations about emotional well-being – much like conversations about successful community reentry after incarceration – often focus solely on mental health and its benefits. Yet, stress caused by untreated or undiagnosed physical conditions can quickly erode mental health and, in turn, a person’s emotional well-being. People who have been incarcerated often leave prison carrying deep trauma from the carceral environment. When that trauma is combined with poorer overall health  (Healthy People 2030) and limited support after release, emotional well-being suffers significantly (ChangeMH.org). 

A helpful framework is the 5 Key Model, which highlights five areas that support successful reentry: healthy thinking, strong relationships, social engagement, meaningful work, and effective coping strategies. However, the success of this model assumes that a person is in good physical health. Emotional well-being and physical health are deeply connected. To strengthen emotional well-being for people affected by incarceration, we must understand what role physical health plays in the dynamic of people with complex prior trauma in the context of the carceral system. People tend to feel emotionally stronger when they understand their health, feel confident in managing any challenges, and trust the professionals who provide their care(Pan 2025). Naturally, better physical health enables people to be more active, build healthier relationships, and participate more fully in work, hobbies, and other aspects of life. 

In pursuit of the answers to our research questions, we hope to create safe opportunities for formerly incarcerated people to voice their experiences, healthcare providers to give their insight into the experience of treating those with criminal backgrounds, and workers in the carceral system itself to share their observations.  In turn, we will develop a set of effective practices for improving healthcare access and, ultimately, emotional well-being for formerly incarcerated people in Dane County.  

This project strives to shape a deeper understanding of the unique needs of patients impacted by incarceration, promoting culturally responsive and holistic care to healthcare providers to influence a more seamless re-entry process, specifically when it comes to healthcare access. By doing so, individuals can rebuild healthy, emotionally stable lives outside of prison – an outcome that will  lower recidivism and increase positive engagement in the community. 

A note about language and framing this research project in a wider context of community-engaged research: 

Language is never neutral. With any opportunity to engage in rigorous community-engaged research comes the responsibility of being intentional in language. In this work, we think of language as an opportunity to shape stance because language actively frames how problems are conceptualized and how solutions are envisioned in this space. 

We intentionally use “formerly incarcerated” as opposed to “justice-involved” to acknowledge the reality of incarceration and the unfortunate material conditions that it creates for those who have lived it. “Justice-involved” distances our collaborators from the very structures that cause harm. As such, we use “formerly incarcerated” to recenter not just an individual’s lived experience, but specifically the institutional barriers they are presently facing. This choice of language also acknowledges complexity. Many formerly incarcerated people have experienced serious trauma, but they are not defined solely by those experiences. Recognizing both structural harm and personal agency allows us to meet people where they are.

We intentionally distinguish “credentialed experts” and “experiential experts” to illuminate two distinct sources of knowledge. Credentialed experts hold institutional authority in the form of degrees, affiliations, or professional recognitions. Experiential experts hold knowledge derived from navigating systems firsthand – their lived experience. Building research teams that include both credentialed and experiential expertise is necessary to produce the most complete and accurate knowledge base. We name this explicitly to remind us how traditional research spaces have elevated some voices while devaluing others, ultimately restricting our collective understanding of the issues at hand. This research is about listening to people who are too often spoken about rather than spoken with. By centering lived experience alongside credentialed expertise, we hope to contribute knowledge that leads to more accessible, humane healthcare and a smoother path home after incarceration. If we can better understand where systems fail, we can begin to design solutions that support healing, stability, and belonging—for formerly incarcerated people and for our community as a whole.

As community-based researchers, we hope this blog will be a way to inform a broader audience about an important topic in a way that is more engaging and accessible than formal research papers. Moreover, some of the lessons and insights can be applied to the population in general since healthcare access is a serious problem for everybody in this country. Knowing specifically how that lack of healthcare access affects formerly incarcerated individuals serves as an important edge case to how the community at large will be affected by it and can provide useful insight there too. We appreciate your time and attention and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

This article was written and contributed by Mia Williams, Anthony Argento, Dr. Karen Reece