Pacific Standard — Jail and Prison Conditions — Galsworthy Criminal Justice Reform Program

Jail and Prison Conditions

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.

Who's Legally Responsible for Prison and Jail Suicides?

“Suicide is the leading cause of death in jails. The jail suicide rate was 50 per 100,000 inmates, compared to the rate of 13 suicides per 100,000 people across the entire United States population, in 2014, the most recent year with available data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Despite the empirical links between incarceration and suicide, an obstacle course of prisoner-unfriendly legislation and legal doctrines stand in the path of attempts at holding any individual person or institution accountable. Over the past two and a half decades, these legal barriers have made reforming prison conditions via litigation nearly impossible.“

Pacific Standard

May 14, 2019

Death in Prison, Mental HealthPhillip ReevesMay 14, 2019Pacific StandardComment

Jail and Prison Conditions

Galsworthy CJR Program

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