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.
“Solitary confinement — in a windowless room — was a common punishment; Garland says he lost track of whether it was day or night during a spell in solitary and began to hear voices. Mental-health help was hard to get, he alleged, even after he started swallowing shards of metal and tried to hang himself. He detailed the treatment in a lawsuit accusing the county of subjecting inmates to inhumane conditions — a claim the county denies.“
LA Times
May 23, 2019
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