Life After Prison? Maybe...maybe not..

Ex-cons fall prey to high death rates. The leading cause of death among the newly released is drug overdose. Next: heart attacks, homicide.

By Karen Augé
Denver Post Staff Writer

If there is anything more risky than going to prison, it may be getting out of prison, a new study shows. In the first two weeks after release, former inmates die at a rate 13 times that of the general population, a University of Colorado researcher has found.

The leading cause of death among former inmates is - by a whopping margin - drug overdose. And the most common deadly drug is cocaine, according to the study by Dr. Ingrid Binswanger, which will appear in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Heart attacks pose the second greatest risk to the newly freed, followed by homicide.

"Clearly there is a period of high vulnerability in the first two weeks after release," Binswanger said..

Some experts said the results don't surprise them, because inmates have more physical and mental health problems than other citizens and often get little help making the transition to freedom after a highly structured life.

"I don't know how anybody makes it," said Christie Donner of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.

"One day they are in a secure facility where life is completely dictated," and the next they are on their own, Donner said.

"There is a perception that there is a transition period. But that handoff doesn't exist," she said.

In 2005, there were 784,400 people on supervised parole from prison nationwide, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

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