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.
“‘Historically prisoners have not been part of hurricane planning,’ Mazurek said, ‘until it comes time to use them as cheap labor to help with disasters.’ The same prisoners forced to endure Florence may well be made to do unpaid labor cleaning up its damage, like prisoners in Florida after Irma.“
The Appeal
September 14, 2018
Read More“This conduct shocks the conscience; our country’s Constitution simply cannot tolerate this type of discriminatory treatment, where all free citizens evacuate to save their life, but inmates are placed in dire straits at a local jail because they are incarcerated — noting that many inmates are pretrial detainees who have merely (been) accused of a crime.“
Charlotte Observer
September 14, 2018
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