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.
"And from now until the end of the strike on September 9, everyone can lift the strikers up in prayer: that, as the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee puts it, "prisoners are safe, that they can have hopes and dreams for the future, that they can build towards redemption, rather than being condemned to a slow death inside a concrete box.""
National Catholic Review
August 30, 2018
Read More"Since the settlement, the department has also been working to move the most medically vulnerable inmates out of hot prisons across the state — almost 75 percent of Texas prisons and state-run jails don’t have air conditioning in housing areas. Collier said the department has identified about 10,000 inmates who are most at risk for heat sensitivity, and 3,000 were already in air-conditioned beds. Since the settlement, about 700 others have been moved to cooled housing, and the rest still need to be moved."
Texas Tribune
August 29, 2018
Read More"'The safety and security of our employees is my number one concern,' Secretary Wetzel said. 'Our state prisons, especially those in the western part of the state, have experienced recent incidents in which employees have been sickened and we need to get to the bottom of this issue now'."
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
August 29, 2018
Read More"A rogue competition that rewarded participating deputies for using force on inmates at the El Paso County jail only spurred a formal investigation after a deputy became convinced that a fellow deputy had slammed a woman face-first on a cell floor just to boost his ranking."
The Gazette
August 27, 2018
Read More"Inmate protests have been happening for generations, but it is only in the last few years that organizers have had success coordinating from penitentiary to penitentiary and state to state."
New York Times
August 26, 2018
Read More"Until the mid-1990s, the Illinois Department of Corrections had a robust vocational training program and on- and off-site job opportunities for inmates. In more recent years, however, prison jobs, apprenticeships, and educational programs have all but disappeared. Most inmates in IDOC now spend more than 20 hours a day confined to their cells—even if they're not technically in solitary confinement or segregation"
Chicago Reader
August 25, 2018
Read More"It was the kind of moment that you witness but your brain just rejects; you can’t believe what you just saw."
Marshall Project
August 23, 2018
Read More"Nicholas Turner is the president of the Vera Institute of Justice. He spoke with guest host of The Takeaway Matt Katz about why American prisons can be so dehumanizing."
The Takeaway
August 22, 2018
Read More"The Bureau of Prisons claims that 'solitary confinement does not exist' in the federal prison system and considers placement in the SMU to be 'non-punitive.' It’s a rosy characterization roundly rejected by criminal justice advocates, incarcerated people, and reporters alike; 'USP Lewisburg might be the worst place in the federal prison system,' Justin Peters wrote in Slate in 2013, 'so bad that some inmates there actually dream of being transferred to the famously isolating Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado'."
The Appeal
August 21, 2018
Read More"Instead, they offer it as a warning of what can happen when oppressive conditions and prisoner mistreatment are not addressed. 'We’re sending out the message that, unless things change, you’re risking another Attica,' D told me."
The Intercept
August 21, 2018
Read More"The city’s efforts to close Rikers Island are commendable and long overdue. But as the de Blasio administration’s new blueprint to shutter the jail complex reflects, New York is still struggling, as are cities and states across America, to manage the many people with mental illness who are thrown in jails and prisons that, for all intents and purposes, have become psychiatric hospitals without the services."
New York Daily News
August 16, 2018
Read More"Inmates were confined to their cells for four days after the corrections officer was killed, with the exception of emergency medical needs, she said. Inmates are being allowed to shower every other day, up from one shower every three days earlier in the lockdown."
Minnesota Star Tribune
August 15, 2018
Read More"'It is my opinion, within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that SCDC’s policies and practices regarding hepatitis C testing deviate from the standard of care,' said James Grubbs, an infectious disease physician who has worked for the prisons system since 2016."
The State
August 14, 2018
Read More"The group is encouraging prisoners to participate in work strikes, sit-ins, boycotts and hunger strikes from Aug. 21 until Sept. 9, according to the statement. A series of demands have been issued, including improving conditions in prisons, paying a fair wage for prison labor, providing the possibility of parole to all prisoners, allowing access to rehabilitation programs, increasing funding at state rehabilitation services and restoring voting rights to felons."
The State
August 13, 2018
Read More"The double shifts — a long-standing problem — have cost the Michigan Department of Corrections $12.4 in overtime in the last two years, plus an ongoing lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department, alleging gender discrimination."
Detroit Free Press
August 10, 2018
Read More"For the last seven years, inmates have stocked the libraries of their personal MP3 players with $2 downloads. Come January, they’ll be forced to hand it all over because the Florida Department of Corrections signed a new deal with a competing company."
Florida Times-Union
August 8, 2018
Read More“The consequences of these heat waves can be severe. A Columbia Law School climate study estimated that most of those incarcerated did not have air conditioning in their units. Exposure to high heat alone can lead to increases in aggression, suicide, poor cognitive functioning, and overall poor mental health. What’s more, over 20 percent of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons have a mental illness, and an aging prison population means that many individuals are suffering from medical conditions like high blood pressure. Psychotropic drugs and high blood pressure medications can both disrupt the body's ability to regulate heat and cool itself down—meaning that many people in prison face higher risk of overheating.“
Vera Institute
August 10, 2018
Read More"The women described a system of flagrant sexual extortion and other abuses. They said guards illegally smuggled drugs, tobacco and other contraband into the facility, used excessive force against inmates for minor infractions such as talking in the chow hall and forced women to perform degrading acts, such as exposing themselves."
Miami Herald
August 8, 2018
Read More"In a class-action lawsuit, Dodson and other former inmates allege that about 60 diabetic Trousdale prisoners face daily risk because of unhealthy food, unpredictable meal times and spotty access to insulin shots. Diabetics generally inject insulin when they eat, but inmates allege they often wait hours for the drug because of understaffing, which is designed to "maximize profits," and frequent prison lockdowns."
The Tennessean
August 7, 2018
Read More"While sitting idly in jail, Tuzlic was, like other pregnant prisoners, 'frequently hungry and undernourished' due to the 'nutritionally inadequate”'pregnancy diet. The complaint alleged prisoners often were not provided full portions of food or portions were completely missing. They were not given prenatal vitamins or calcium supplements."
Prison Legal News
August 4, 2018
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