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.
"Each day I was not called for medical chain, I grew more anxious. Two weeks later, I requested another appointment. Two more weeks passed before I once again sat on a paper-covered exam table in the prison medical unit. The almost-doctor had no knowledge of my request, he said."
The Marshall Project
July 26, 2018
Read More"State prisons across the U.S. are failing to treat at least 144,000 inmates who have hepatitis C, a curable but potentially fatal liver disease, according to a recent survey and subsequent interviews of state corrections departments. Many of the 49 states that responded to questions about inmates with hepatitis C cited high drug prices as the reason for denying treatment. The drugs can cost up to $90,000 for a course of treatment."
Kaiser Health News
July 9, 2018
Read More"'This is the population that is the most expensive to incarcerate and the least likely to re-offend,' report author Mary Price told New Jersey 101.5. 'It makes no sense to keep them locked up'."
New Jersey 101.5
July 8, 2018
Read More"Even before their incarceration, prisoners are likely to have unmet dental needs, research shows. While in prison, they have a constitutional right to dental care, but the courts have offered little guidance on the services that institutions must provide."
The Marshall Project
June 28, 2018
Read More"Before these people died in 2017, they were among the 34,000 people housed in Arizona’s state prisons who are completely dependent upon the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) and its for-profit contractor, Corizon Health, for all medical and mental health care. ADC, in its own reviews, found that these deaths were 'caused by or affected in a negative manner by healthcare personnel'."
ACLU
June 25, 2018
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