Even if an inmate's sentence is not oppressively long, their treatment while incarcerated can still constitute subhuman treatment. Prisons are not medical facilities, but they regularly are forced to deal with mental health problems and care for elderly and terminally ill inmates. Food, if it's even edible, usually lacks enough nutrition for inmates' health to not deteriorate. Plus, with a lack of opportunities to see family, read, or gain skill sets, inmates are placed in buildings which lack any resemblance of the civilized world.
“This month, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections permitted The Appeal to photograph inside SCI Laurel Highlands, a prison in the southwestern part of the state that houses a large population of people who require long-term and personal care. The prison provides skilled nursing, hospice and palliative care for some of the oldest men in the Pennsylvania prison system.“
The Appeal
November 20, 2019
Read More“The Equal Justice Initiative said today there have been 13 homicides in Alabama prisons this year, part of a sharp increase over the last decade that has raised the homicide rate far above the most recently available national rate. The 13 slayings this year represent a rate of about 62 homicides per 100,000 inmates. The national homicide rate in state prisons was 7 per 100,000 in 2012, 2013, and 2014, the most recent numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.“
Birmingham News
November 18, 2019
Read More“Arizona, where Abdullah died, is tied for sixth highest in its use of solitary confinement. It has also seen an uptick in the number of suicides and instances of self-harm. During the fiscal year in which Abdullah killed herself, six prisoners died by suicide in Arizona prisons. In fiscal year 2018, there were seven suicides and 708 recorded instances of self-harm. For the last three-quarters of fiscal year 2019, after the state changed how it documented these events, there were six suicides, 87 suicide attempts and 1,406 non-suicidal instances of self-harm in the average daily population of about 42,000 inmates.“
Huffington Post
August 29, 2019
Read More“South Carolina should improve prison officers’ training, better manage gang members and penalize their leaders, and offer inmates more opportunities to shave time off their sentences to incentivize good behavior, according to a state audit presented to legislators Monday. A lengthy review by the Legislative Audit Council also found inconsistencies in how and whether inmates and visitors are searched for contraband. And it’s unclear how much contraband — such as cellphones, which have allowed inmates to carry on their criminal enterprises — is found because it’s not being properly tracked, the audit found.“
Charleston Post and Courier
August 26, 2019
Read More“When accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself while awaiting trial this month, it was the first recorded suicide at Manhattan’s federal detention center in 13 years. But across the vast Bureau of Prisons, suicides have been gradually ticking up even as the overall inmate population has declined. Twenty-seven federal inmates committed suicide in the fiscal year that ended in September 2018, the largest number in at least the past five years, according to prison system records. At least 21 inmates, including Epstein, have killed themselves in federal facilities since Oct. 1.“
USA Today
August 22, 2019
Read More“Terrible things happen when too many people are crammed into too small a space, a common practice in Kentucky’s local jails, which are packed far beyond their capacity with state inmates who should be serving their felony sentences in a prison. At the Boyd County Detention Center, which typically houses at least 50 percent more prisoners than it’s supposed to, an Ashland police officer left 40-year-old Michael “Boo” Moore last Nov. 27 to be booked for public intoxication, a minor offense. Moore’s battered corpse was carried out of the jail two days later.“
Lexington Herald Ledger
August 21, 2019
Read More“I spent a decade trying to get media outlets to pay attention to the MCC, in Lower Manhattan, pleading with journalists for hours on the phone, over email, and in person to launch investigations of the jail. Over and over, for years, these media organizations did not follow up. Suddenly, there was urgency to talk about the conditions at MCC. The jail now provided an intriguingly grimy backdrop to an already sordid story. The question is whether a sustained light will actually be shined on the conditions there, or whether the widespread fascination with MCC just becomes part of the spectacle.“
The Atlantic
August 16, 2019
Read More“These stories don’t mention Jeffrey Epstein, but they are about him. Epstein was incarcerated in the United States of America, and this is how the United States of America, the mightiest and richest nation there is or ever has been, treats incarcerated people. When you say, “There is no way that guards could be so reckless, so indifferent, so malicious as to just let someone as important as Epstein die,” this is how 32 Americans respond. Many, many more could respond in kind.“
The Atlantic
August 13, 2019
Read More“The DOC found six Monroe Correctional Complex inmates, three of whom died, suffered under negligent care by the center’s head doctor, as The Times’ Jim Brunner reported. While Dr. Julia Barnett has been fired for misconduct and investigators are working to determine if she bears responsibility for four additional inmate deaths there, the agency must undertake broader reforms.“
Seattle Times
July 23, 2019
Read More“Some California county jails saw their rate of inmate-on-inmate homicides triple or quadruple, and statewide the number rose 46% after 2011 prison reforms shifted responsibility from state prisons to county lockups. As sheriffs and jail staffs strain, some inmate crimes go undetected for hours.“
ProPublica
June 13, 2019
Read More“Federal prosecutors are investigating the Massachusetts state prison system over the treatment of elderly and severely ill prisoners, following a five-month investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) published in the Boston Globe and WGBH News.“
New England Center for Investigative Reporting
May 29, 2019
Read More“Surges in the number of Americans dying while incarcerated have occurred against a backdrop of an increase in the US prison population by 500% over the last 40 years. Based on the latest national figures available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 4,980 prisoners in US correctional facilities died in 2014, a nearly 3% increase from 2013. In state prisons, the mortality rate was 275 for every 100,000 people, the highest since data collection began in 2001.“
The Guardian
May 26, 2019
Read More“Smoot has been a nurse for about 20 years. She has worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections since 2016, and said hospice or end-of-life care is different for prisoners. They are not in their homes, in their own beds, and oftentimes are not surrounded by loved ones. But still, Smoot sees it as her job to comfort them.“
The Southern Illinoisan
May 26, 2019
Read More“Suicide is the leading cause of death in jails. The jail suicide rate was 50 per 100,000 inmates, compared to the rate of 13 suicides per 100,000 people across the entire United States population, in 2014, the most recent year with available data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Despite the empirical links between incarceration and suicide, an obstacle course of prisoner-unfriendly legislation and legal doctrines stand in the path of attempts at holding any individual person or institution accountable. Over the past two and a half decades, these legal barriers have made reforming prison conditions via litigation nearly impossible.“
Pacific Standard
May 14, 2019
Read More“Serving a prison sentence is difficult in and of itself. The deplorable living conditions, the separation from loved ones, the brutality—you know about all of this. But do you know what it’s like to serve your time at a prison where executions are occurring? That was my reality when I was incarcerated at the Huntsville Unit, where the state of Texas housed the busiest death chamber in the country.“
The Marshall Project
April 25, 2019
Read More“The jail system’s inmate death toll stands at 135 dead over the last decade, according to public records. Between 2000 and 2007, San Diego had the second highest death rate of inmates among the state’s large jail systems, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, those numbers have only increased. A majority of the 135 deaths involve inmates who struggled with serious mental illness. Some prisoners died of a lack of medical care. And many took their own lives.“
The Guardian
April 16, 2019
Read More“The jail system’s inmate death toll stands at 135 dead over the last decade, according to public records. Between 2000 and 2007, San Diego had the second highest death rate of inmates among the state’s large jail systems, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, those numbers have only increased. A majority of the 135 deaths involve inmates who struggled with serious mental illness. Some prisoners died of a lack of medical care. And many took their own lives.“
The Guardian
April 16, 2019
Read More“There can be no more shocking illustration of those dynamics than these photos. They were taken inside St. Clair Correctional Facility, a state prison in Springville, AL, that has long been infamous for violence and despair. There have reportedly been four homicides inside St. Clair in the past six months. In 2003, the SPLC sued St. Clair for having dangerously inadequate health care. Multiple incidents of violence at the prison are cited in this week’s scathing new Justice Department report, including knife fights, stabbings, beatings, and murders of inmates by stabbing and strangling.“
Splinter News
April 5, 2019
Read More“Of 71 deaths reported in Utah county jails over a five-year period, 38 were suicides and 31 occurred within the first week after the prisoner was booked into jail. Six of the deaths occurred on the first day in custody. Deaths in state prisons were less predominated by suicides, and the prisoners had usually been incarcerated far longer than one week. Of the 20 prison deaths reported in 2017, just two were suicides. Two others resulted from drug or alcohol intoxication and 15 from “illness,” while the last was listed as “other/unknown.” “
Prison Legal News
March 5, 2019
Read More“There may be no worse place to live in New York City than on Rikers Island, and it is an even worse place to die—locked inside of a jail, forcibly separated from family and friends. Most people whose lives end on Rikers die of natural causes, but there is no doubt that some deaths there have been caused by the culture and conditions of Rikers itself.“
The New Yorker
February 20, 2019
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