Nationality-Based Criminalisation of South-South Migration: the Experience of Venezuelan Forced Migrants in Peru.

This article examines how Venezuelan forced migrants in Peru experience xenophobic discrimination, which has become increasingly linked to their criminalisation as thieves and murderers. Based on 12 months of qualitative fieldwork, including 72 in-depth interviews, five focus groups, and a survey (N116) in five Peruvian cities, we explore how Venezuelans experience, and make sense of, discrimination and criminalisation in everyday life. First, we discuss how criminalisation compares to general xenophobic discrimination, and other types of discrimination experiences. Second, we juxtapose the prevalence of xenophobic discrimination and criminalisation experiences across the five cities of our study, and between public spaces and the workspace. We then move to the qualitative discussion of the criminalisation experience in these different spaces. Fourth, we discuss how Venezuelan migrants perceive this criminalising discrimination as linked to their villanisation in the media and political discourses. Finally, we discuss our findings and make suggestion for further research. The paper contributes to the literature on migrant criminalisation by exploring how criminalisation processes play out in the context of large-scale intraregional forced displacement in the global South.

Vulnerable populations, prison, and federal and state Medicaid policies: avoiding the loss of a right to care.

Unknown numbers of incarcerated people are losing public benefits. Instead of suspending these until the prisoner or detainee is released into society, some states are simply terminating benefits upon incarceration. Although there is evidence to suggest that this policy is having negative consequences for those who are reentering society and on their communities and systems of care, the precise impact is not clear because a systematic monitoring of these actions is nonexistent. A more efficient system would (a) suspend benefits and automatically reinstate the same to those eligible upon release and (b) establish a monitoring mechanism that would provide an accurate accounting of how these benefits are being applied.

Determining what we stand for will guide what we do: community priorities, ethical research paradigms, and research with vulnerable populations.

Prisoners, ex-offenders, and the communities they belong to constitute a distinct and highly vulnerable population, and research must be sensitive to their priorities. In light of recent suggestions that scientific experimentation involving prisoners be reconsidered, community-based participatory research can be a valuable tool for determining the immediate concerns of prisoners, such as the receipt of high-quality and dignified health care inside and outside prisons. In building research agendas, more must be done to ensure the participation of communities affected by the resulting policies.

Community health workers: social justice and policy advocates for community health and well-being.

Community health workers are resources to their communities and to the advocacy and policy world on several levels. Community health workers can connect people to health care and collect information relevant to policy. They are natural researchers who, as a result of direct interaction with the populations they serve, can recount the realities of exclusion and propose remedies for it. As natural researchers, they contribute to best practices while informing public policy with the information they can share. In this light, community health workers may also be advocates for social justice.

Building effective programs to improve men's health.

Historically, the health care needs of poor men and men of color have been neglected in the United States, resulting in significant disparities in health and health outcomes. Dedicated resources to address the particular needs of men are necessary to eliminate the health disparities that afflict underserved men. The following article compiles and shares some of the lessons learned as experienced by three Community Voices sites that have been active in men's health. Community Voices Miami's Overtown Men's Health Study, Denver Health Men's Health Initiative, and Baltimore Men's Health Center are working to address the health needs of men in some of the most vulnerable communities in the United States. Examples of community-specific assessment of men's needs, community engagement, service delivery, service to special populations, marketing, addressing sustainability, and advances in public policy to improve men's health are presented.