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.
“According to mental health advocates, New Hampshire stands alone in the US in warehousing involuntarily committed mental health patients in prison. There have been efforts to reform the system for years now, but the state’s legislature never agreed on the millions of dollars needed to build a secure psychiatric facility, leaving the prison SPU as the only option for some patients.“
The Guardian
March 1, 2019
Read More"National advocacy groups say New Hampshire is the only place in the country where the ward for people at risk of hurting themselves or others, called a secure psychiatric unit, is located in a prison."
The Marshall Project
July 30, 2018
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