A growing body of literature has engaged with mass incarceration as a public health problem. This article reviews some of that literature, illustrating why and how bioethicists can and should engage with the problem of mass incarceration as a remediable cause of health inequities. “Mass incarceration” refers to a phenomenon that emerged in the United States fifty years ago: imprisoning a vastly larger proportion of the population than peer countries do, with a greatly disproportionate number of incarcerated people being members of marginalized racial and ethnic groups. Bioethicists have long engaged with questions of health justice for incarcerated people, including consent issues for those participating in research and access to health care. This article provides an overview of the individual and public health impacts of mass incarceration. The article argues that mass incarceration is a bioethics issue that should be addressed in medical education, identifies opportunities for bioethicists to guide hospitals’ interactions with law enforcement officials, and calls on bioethicists to be in conversation with medical and nursing students and health care professionals about these groups’ advocacy efforts concerning structural racism, police violence, and mass incarceration.

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美国五十年大规模监禁及其对生命伦理学的意义

越来越多的文献将大规模监禁视为一个公共卫生问题。本文回顾了其中一些文献，说明了生物伦理学家为什么以及如何能够并且应该解决大规模监禁问题，将其作为健康不平等的一个可补救的原因。“大规模监禁”是指五十年前在美国出现的一种现象：监禁人口的比例远高于其他国家，其中边缘化种族和族裔群体的比例大大超出了被监禁者的比例。生物伦理学家长期以来一直致力于解决被监禁者的健康正义问题，包括参与研究和获得医疗保健的人的同意问题。本文概述了大规模监禁对个人和公共健康的影响。该文章认为，大规模监禁是一个应该在医学教育中解决的生物伦理问题，确定了生物伦理学家指导医院与执法官员互动的机会，并呼吁生物伦理学家与医学和护理学生以及医疗保健专业人员就以下问题进行对话：这些团体针对结构性种族主义、警察暴力和大规模监禁的宣传工作。