In this two-part episode of Inspired to Heal, “Healthcare Behind Bars,” host Bill Trick speaks with Dr. Jack Raba, whose medical career found itself intertwined with Cook County’s correctional system at many points in his life. He volunteered during high school, where he sat with patients to hear their stories. While studying to be a priest, he worked with a family near the hospital and felt a calling to leave the seminary and go to medical school to heal people differently. After medical school, he chose to train at Cook County Hospital, where Dr. Raba observed suboptimal facilities for patient care. He became the president of the Cook County house staff doctors’ union and within two months, the union provided a list of demands for their contract; nearly all centered around improving conditions for patient care. After Dr. Raba and several other doctors went on strike, six of them—one of them being Dr. Raba—were sent to jail. After his release, Dr. Raba found himself on the other side of the bars as the medical director of Cook County Jail, where he implemented several important public health initiatives around control of communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, and recognized and exposed police violence.
Dr. Raba’s choice to put two items in his doctor’s bag: elimination of the cash bond and treatment, rather than incarceration, for substance use. He spoke of seeing inmates housed for long periods of time in Cook County Jail for nonviolent crimes who could not post cash bail and how this disproportionately punished poor people. Rather than incarcerate individuals for drug offenses, the money should be used towards behavioral health treatment for substance use disorders or mental health conditions; it costs roughly $45,000 per year to incarcerate an individual. Approximately 44% of jail inmates have a mental illness compared to 18% of the general U.S. population. Thus, the three largest mental health facilities in the U.S. are jails—Cook County Jail being one of these three. Dr. Raba’s life work in correctional healthcare demonstrates how one individual, leading a dedicated team of healthcare workers, can meaningfully impact the lives of many people. His compassion and humility shine through in this interview.