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.
"Colorado’s Department of Human Services has fielded at least 59 contempt of court citations or threats of contempt — including against the state’s chief of the agency — for how long it is taking mentally ill people to access treatment before standing trial, according to an investigation by CPR News."
Colorado Public Radio
July 23, 2018
Read More"To toxic prison activists like Panagioti Tsolkas, that’s hardly surprising. 'I think [it’s] the same reason why so many prisoners are not given the right to vote and held without any hope of parole,' he said. 'Because they’re viewed as a subclass of the population, deserving of less basic rights, help, and protection'."
The Outline
July 23, 2018
Read More"Oprah Winfrey visits Pelican Bay State Prison where she reports on conditions in the "SHU" isolation unit and on a nationwide reform movement that is reducing the use of solitary confinement."
CBS
July 22, 2018
Read More"State prison officials are in emergency-response mode this week as a heat wave bears down on a large swath of Texas, rivaling the system that triggered the deaths of 10 inmates from heat stroke in 2011."
Houston Chronicle
July 22, 2018
Read More"'Programs help us get out of our mind, because you get in, you get stuck,' she said. 'You think, what I could have done, what I couldn't have done. What I should have done, what I didn't' -- and it’ll drive you really anxious and excited, and it brings on other emotions. But this helps. The program helps'."
KTVZ Central Oregon
July 16, 2018
Read More"In order to change this culture, we need to take action. We need to advocate for sweeping changes to practices within the jail, and we need to hold the Sheriff’s Office accountable for implementing those changes. We need to stand up to the culture of negligence that allowed seven people housed in a county facility to die in 18 months."
Milwaukee Courier
July 14, 2018
Read More"In Bucks County, 245 out of its 815 inmates are in some kind of drug or alcohol treatment program, attending AA or NA meetings, group therapy or other designated programs, correction officials said. Although about 75 percent of the jail population faces addiction issues, not all of them want treatment, and for the majority of them the programs are voluntary."
WITF Harrisburg
July 12, 2018
Read More"People are constantly asking me: What’s a day in prison like? Is it boring? Or are you busy? So the other day, I toted a pocket-sized notebook with me everywhere I went, scribbling down every single thing I did. I thought I’d share my findings with you to show you that we prisoners aren’t deadbeats — our days are, in fact, incredibly full."
The Marshall Project
July 12, 2018
Read More"The only bachelor’s degree programs available to women incarcerated in the Texas prison system are ending. By 2020, Texas A&M University-Central says it will completely phase out three four-year degree programs it offers to women at several state prisons in Gatesville, and the university hasn’t been taking new students at the lockups since spring 2017."
Texas Observer
July 12, 2018
Read More"While the mental health industry has the luxury of turning away people it doesn’t want the corrections system must accept whoever arrives at the door. If we "normalize" mental health jails for individuals with mental illness, we accept the shift from programs that help manage symptoms in the community, with or without supervision, to treatment in jail or prison as a first stop."
The Advocate
July 11, 2018
Read More"Following criticism that some Alabama sheriffs profited large sums of money by skimping on jailhouse meals, Gov. Kay Ivey said Tuesday that the state will no longer give jail food funds to 'sheriffs personally'."
Birmingham News
July 11, 2018
Read More"The unit 'so severely and completely deprives prisoners of meaningful social contact and positive environmental stimulation that it puts them at significant risk of very serious psychological harm,' University of California, Santa Cruz psychology professor Craig Haney wrote. 'That psychological harm may be irreversible and even fatal'."
AP
July 11, 2018
Read More"By some accounts, nearly half of America's incarcerated population is mentally ill — and journalist Alisa Roth argues that most aren't getting the treatment they need."
NPR
July 10, 2018
Read More"To make big impacts on jail populations, we need to expand who we think of as good candidates for diversion or release, and we need to speed up case processing for others who must stay in custody for public-safety reasons. This means focusing on individuals seen as higher-risk, such as people who have been charged with nonviolent felonies or who are in jail because they violated the terms of probation or parole."
Governing Institute
July 10, 2018
Read More"'From the prison to the judicial system nobody listened to me, it`s like they don`t care, you see what I`m saying?' he said. 'Once they sentence you it`s over'."
WTVR Richmond
July 10, 2018
Read More"Harris County believes it’s the first to formally create a separate bureau responsible entirely for mental health and jail diversion. It has equipped deputies with tablets that connect to a psychiatrist for on-the-spot treatment or triage and will set up a central booking desk this fall to better sort those arrested into treatment before they get charged with a crime."
Politico
July 9, 2018
Read More"State prisons across the U.S. are failing to treat at least 144,000 inmates who have hepatitis C, a curable but potentially fatal liver disease, according to a recent survey and subsequent interviews of state corrections departments. Many of the 49 states that responded to questions about inmates with hepatitis C cited high drug prices as the reason for denying treatment. The drugs can cost up to $90,000 for a course of treatment."
Kaiser Health News
July 9, 2018
Read More"'This is the population that is the most expensive to incarcerate and the least likely to re-offend,' report author Mary Price told New Jersey 101.5. 'It makes no sense to keep them locked up'."
New Jersey 101.5
July 8, 2018
Read More"'I’ve been concerned about their over-using administrative segregation for years,' said state Senator John Whitmire, who chairs the state Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee. 'I’m convinced that, if you’re not emotionally disturbed when you go in there, you will be when you get out'."
Prison Legal News
July 6, 2018
Read More"I felt stuck in limbo—stuck because I knew a lot about what not to do. I had given up most of my bad habits and examined my heart and mind with help from counselors, both inmates and professionals, but still had no real purpose. Nothing to do. At the prison there was a program called Musicambia that brings teachers in every week for music theory and performance classes....I thought: I have to get into this program."
The Marshall Project
July 5, 2018
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