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Fall 2007

RETHINKING RE-ENTRY
Community Connection Key to Returning Prisoners' Success

Although California’s juvenile arrest rates have declined dramatically since 1995, youth confinement rates remain high. Each year, 130,000 children and youths are released from a period of confinement in a California state or county juvenile justice facility. According to state data, half of the youths incarcerated in the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice will be re-arrested within two years of release. County recidivism data are less precise, but it is estimated that more than one-third of those released from county facilities will be re-arrested within one or two years.
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As California grapples with the challenge of severe prison overcrowding, the issues surrounding prisoners’ re-entry into society have received new attention as public policy priorities. But with 173,000 Californians currently incarcerated, our current re-entry efforts are insufficient in the uphill battle against recidivism. We need more money and more political will on the issue, but the re-entry movement must also adopt a new path. Let’s retire the language of “re-entry” and begin an era of “reintegration.”
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MULTIDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION AND POLICY ADVOCACY ARE KEY STRATEGIES
Healthy Returns Initiative Strengthens Mental Health Services in the Juvenile Justice System

BINATIONAL HEALTH WEEK, OCT 13-21, HOLDS INAUGURAL EVENT AT THE CENTER FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
Policy Forum Puts Binational Health Ideas into Action

From its humble beginnings seven years ago as a collaborative effort between seven California counties and seven Mexican states, Binational Health Week (BHW) has grown to be the largest grassroots health-promotion effort in the hemisphere and an important forum for policies on binational health.
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FROM THE ABUNDANT PHARMACY OPENS OCTOBER 4, 2007
Chinese Licorice an Ancient Healer

Licorice isn’t just the flavor of the lonely, black jelly beans left at the bottom of the bag—it’s also an herb that civilizations around the world have used as medicine for millennia. It is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, the subject of the Center for Healthy Communities’
newest exhibit, From the Abundant Pharmacy: Traditional Chinese Medicine in L.A.’s Chinatown. The exhibit, which runs October 4 through February 8, 2008, is a collaboration between The California Endowment, the Chinese American Museum and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.
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Photos from recent events at the Center for Healthy Communities.

Dr. Bonnie Sorenson, director of the California Department of Public Health, spoke at a press conference on the 15-year anniversary of the California Smokers' Helpline.
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