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.
"Florida is currently on track to outpace its 2017 record for most prison deaths at 428, with 97,794 prisoners in the state system. As of June 2018, 216 people have died in Florida prisons. In 2015, the Miami Herald chronicled a steep rise in prison deaths since 2000, and since then the numbers have continued to climb. "
The Appeal
June 25, 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
Read More"In many situations, closest relatives are informed of loved ones’ deaths through voicemails, text messages and letters, according to advocates and families of incarcerated people. It can take days or weeks for them to find out. Families say the way they were notified ends up being the searing, specific detail that pains them long after their loved one is buried."
The Marshall Project
June 21, 2018
Read More"He said he witnessed sewage leaking from toilets and that the jail’s kitchen reeked of the stench of mold buildup. Prisoners had to take their food back to their dorms. One prisoner yelled he had been bitten by a rodent, lifting his pant leg to reveal a gaping hole."
The Appeal
June 18, 2018
Read More"There is some evidence that the program helps people stay out of emergency rooms and hospitals: A study in the American Journal of Public Health of 200 chronically ill former inmates in San Francisco, half assigned to a Transitions clinic and half to a primary care program, found that the Transitions patients’ use of emergency rooms was 50 percent lower."
New York Times
May 29, 2018
Read More"Since the 1980s, the increase in restrictive housing has mirrored the exponential rise of incarceration. Originally intended to manage people who committed violence within jails and prisons, restrictive housing has become a common tool for responding to all levels of rule violations, from minor to serious; managing challenging populations; and housing people considered vulnerable. In short, just as systems have come to rely too heavily on incarceration, departments of corrections now rely too much on restrictive housing."
Vera Institute
May 1, 2018
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