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.
“State spending on mental health care for prison inmates has nearly quadrupled in the past two decades. Expenditures on the Colorado Department of Corrections’ “mental health subprogram” increased from about $4.4 million in fiscal year 2000-01 to nearly $17 million in fiscal year 2017-18, the department reports. “
Colorado Gazette
May 19, 2019
Read More“Dean Williams, the new head of Colorado’s Department of Corrections, says he wants to bring a ‘culture change’ to prisons so that the state’s 20,000-plus inmates have a more normal human existence. To that end, the state DOC this month lifted its ban on inmates receiving greeting cards, drawings and certain other personalized forms of correspondence from the outside world.“
The Colorado Independent
May 16, 2019
Read More“Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said the prison problems would be best addressed in a special session of the Legislature. Only the governor can call a special session, and Marsh said he hoped Gov. Kay Ivey would call one on prisons. The regular legislative session, going on now, ends no later than June 17. “
AL.com
May 16, 2019
Read More“I put in a grievance about this, issue and it was ‘lost in the mail,’ even though of course it wasn’t even leaving the building. I tried again, and the grievance officer told me to ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Alas, all because of a single tiny little grain. But the smallest things loom large in prison.“
The Marshall Project
May 28, 2019
Read More“When we talk about solitary confinement, the common assumption is that prisons use it to control the worst of the worst, men and women who committed such horrific crimes that they will probably never walk out of those facilities. The letters from this inmate show that is not the case. They show that what happens behind those barbed-wired fences will be carried outside of them on the backs of those who are released.“
Washington Post
May 30, 2019
Read More“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
Read More“Such hope is in short supply at Georgia prisons. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of electronic book catalogues in 12 state prisons found wide disparities in the number and availability of reading material. Baldwin State Prison Library, for example, offers fewer than 2,000 books for about 1,000 prisoners, about one tenth the offering of comparably sized Central State Prison in Macon.“
Atlanta Journal Constitution
May 11, 2019
Read More“Under current law, Texas Department of Criminal Justice facilities are prohibited from shackling women during labor and while they are recovering from delivery, but they can still be shackled at any other time. White’s bill would prevent shackling after a woman’s pregnancy is confirmed by a medical professional. While TDCJ already provides women with feminine hygiene products each month, women have reported that the tampons are uncomfortable to use and that they often don’t have enough pads to last through the month. White’s bill would require TDCJ to provide regular or large sized pads with wings and regular or large sized tampons. The bill would also require the department to offer up to 10 free feminine hygiene products to women each day.“
Texas Tribune
May 10, 2019
Read More“No national studies have been done to show the prevalence of dyslexia among prisoners, but the little research that exists at the state level suggests the rates are quite high: A 2000 study of Texas prisoners found that about half were likely dyslexic, and about two-thirds struggled with reading comprehension. A 2014 study by the Education Department found that about a third of incarcerated people surveyed at 98 prisons struggled to pick out basic information while reading simple texts. Still, most prisons historically haven’t conducted widespread screenings for dyslexia—making it hard for prisoners with the reading disorder to make up lost ground while they’re behind bars.“
Mother Jones
April 30, 2019
Read More“Serving a prison sentence is difficult in and of itself. The deplorable living conditions, the separation from loved ones, the brutality—you know about all of this. But do you know what it’s like to serve your time at a prison where executions are occurring? That was my reality when I was incarcerated at the Huntsville Unit, where the state of Texas housed the busiest death chamber in the country.“
The Marshall Project
April 25, 2019
Read More“But increasingly, jails across the nation are cutting off these visits. Instead, all communication must take place through a digital screen. On March 18, the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri announced that, effective immediately, no in-person visits would be permitted. Visitors to the jail would use a video portal in the same area where visitations had always taken place. But the person they came to see would remain in the jail common spaces at a different video portal. Incarcerated people could still meet with one person face-to-face: their attorney.”
The Appeal
April 22, 2019
Read More“What were intended as spinoffs of the viral #FeelingCuteChallenge have since sparked outrage this week as many argued the posts made light of serious issues surrounding the treatment of inmates. At least four state corrections departments have launched investigations into employees accused of taking part in the challenge.“
Washington Post
April 18, 2019
Read More“Religious seders (which means “order” in Hebrew) are not prison-friendly. They involve food and drinks that are inaccessible to inmates. Things like four cups of grape juice per person, and stacks of unleavened bread called matzoh. I was anxious imagining how the administration would react to me wanting to celebrate Passover. I went to our rabbinical chaplain and asked for help.“
The Marshall Project
April 18, 2019
Read More“The city’s jails failed to report more than 1,000 inmate fights over a three-month span thanks to their “unreliable” system of tracking violence, according to a damning report from the Department of Investigation. The seriously flawed reporting process not only hides the violence in city jails from the public, but it also puts inmates and staffers at risk, according to the report.“
New York Post
April 16, 2019
Read More“The jail system’s inmate death toll stands at 135 dead over the last decade, according to public records. Between 2000 and 2007, San Diego had the second highest death rate of inmates among the state’s large jail systems, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, those numbers have only increased. A majority of the 135 deaths involve inmates who struggled with serious mental illness. Some prisoners died of a lack of medical care. And many took their own lives.“
The Guardian
April 16, 2019
Read More“The jail system’s inmate death toll stands at 135 dead over the last decade, according to public records. Between 2000 and 2007, San Diego had the second highest death rate of inmates among the state’s large jail systems, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, those numbers have only increased. A majority of the 135 deaths involve inmates who struggled with serious mental illness. Some prisoners died of a lack of medical care. And many took their own lives.“
The Guardian
April 16, 2019
Read More“Under international law, more than 15 days of isolated confinement can be considered to be torture. Yet in New Jersey, some people are held in isolation for months. For 22-23 hours a day they are left only with a bed and their thoughts in a room that's typically no more than 8-by-10 feet. It causes lifelong trauma, increasing the risk that people become unnerved, irritable, erratic, depressed, irrational.“
New Jersey Star Ledger
April 14, 2019
Read More“But Nebraska’s troubles show that reducing prison populations is not always as simple as mustering political will. The state’s legislature, judiciary and multiple governors have all agreed that they need to trim its prison population—to no avail. Nebraska illustrates the complex incentives at work in America’s harsh penal system.“
The Economist
April 11, 2019
Read More“The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that a Georgia sheriff is violating the rights of jail inmates by prohibiting them from receiving outside books and magazines. The ACLU sent a letter to Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher urging him to rescind a new policy that says inmates at the county jail in Savannah can no longer receive books or magazines by mail or from visitors. The policy restricts inmates to selecting reading materials from book carts managed by jail staff.“
Minnesota Star Tribune
April 10, 2019
Read More“In 1995, Michigan prison officials implemented a controversial new policy: Any inmate found guilty of two substance-abuse violations would lose all rights to visits, except from their lawyer or minister. The state prison population had grown significantly in the early 1990s, as had the use of drugs inside. Guards worried contraband was being smuggled into facilities and wanted to limit the number of outsiders coming in.“
The Marshall Project
April 9, 2019
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