Legal Scholarship & Advocacy
The SEICHE Center aims to shift the systems that disproportionately disenfranchise formerly incarceration populations through legal advocacy efforts on the local, state, and national levels. From changing institutional hiring practices to alternating policies related to decarceration, our Center applies strategies to changing the criminal justice, health, and other social systems that determine how populations impacted by mass incarceration are allowed to embrace healthy, flourishing lives.
Medical-Legal Partnership
Evaluating 1115 Reentry Waiver Outcomes
In a recent letter to state Medicaid Directors, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) encouraged states to apply for the 1115 Reentry Waiver, which would for the first time expand Medicaid coverage to individuals during incarceration. This expansion presents an opportunity to develop consistent standards of healthcare quality in correctional health services, pre-release services, post-release services, and community reentry. CMS highlighted that states must include a plan for evaluating the success of their waiver.
The Transitions Clinic Network (TCN), the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice at Yale, and the Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute developed a comprehensive roadmap for program evaluation and quality measurement, informed by existing evidence, to assess the quality of care delivered to justice-involved populations and the effectiveness of Reentry Waivers.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine Committee Involvement
SEICHE leadership actively participates in the translation of science into policy recommendations through membership in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Our Founding Director, Dr. Emily Wang, co-chaired a NASEM committee on “Decarcerating Correctional Facilities During COVID-19: Advancing Health, Equity, and Safety” in 2020. She served on the NASEM committee, “The Limits of Recidivism: Measuring Success After Prison." in 2022. In 2024, she is serving on the NASEM committee, “Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Behavioral Health Disorders.”
Advocacy for Policy Change in Connecticut
We advocate for legislation that positively impacts those currently and formerly incarcerated. In 2023 this included Connecticut legislative efforts to:
- ensure that a person has the ability to obtain a state identification card or driver’s license, essential for accessing employment, housing and services, by the time of discharge form a correctional facility.
- support the expansion of the community health worker workforce in the state through Medicaid reimbursement for community health worker services.
Justice Collaboratory and Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest
The Center works with the Justice Collaboratory and The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at the Yale Law School to study how specific laws, practices, and policies impact health outcomes among marginalized groups. These partnerships work to ensure that legal advocacy efforts are robust, rigorous, and grounded in science.