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.
“As the UK government plans to open four new prisons by 2020-21, it’s worth remembering how great an impact the architecture of such institutions can have on the mental health of inmates. Building design can offer therapeutic benefits for both psychiatric in-patients and prisoners. Or, it can result in vulnerable people – including those with severe mental illness – being held in custody, rather than receiving high quality, community-based care. “
The Conversation
February 6, 2019
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