Health risk as an emerging field within the new penology

It is persuasively argued that a new vision of penology is emerging based o n offender classification techniques in which offenders are rationally dist ributed into groups according to the degree of control warranted by their r isk profiles. This article extends the concept of risk within the new penol ogy framework to include health risk. Data from female prisoners showed tha t many of the women in the sample had at one time in their lives acquired s exually transmitted diseases, had engaged in high-risk sexual activities, a nd drug taking behavior. Community health agents and social workers will em erge as control agents to supervise prisoners in the free community with pu blic health risk profiles. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.