HWN Suggests

Health care in jails and prisons is terrible. The pandemic made it even worse.

Believe it or not, incarcerated people are the only US residents with a constitutional right to health care. In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners” violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

“Health care is constitutionally mandated, but it doesn’t mean it’s any good,” said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a health equity scholar at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and co-founder of the Covid Prison Project. Arizona’s prison system has been sued for reportedly providing inadequate care. And a 2001 class-action lawsuit asserted that the California prison system’s medical…

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Featured

 Federal Prisons Are Finally Giving Women the Dignity of Free Tampons

But the fight for female inmates' health is far from over.

 How the Word 'Prisoner' Shapes Health Care in a Prison Hospital

Physical suffering does not stop when you are labeled a criminal. But the label might change how those caring for you carry out that care. While working, I saw many instances of disdain for the prison hospital patients. I saw irritation, resentment, and apathy toward the people in our care by people whose duty it was to provide that care.

 Reforming Health Care for Patients in Prison

Only one group of people in the United States has a constitutional right to health care—the incarcerated. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that depriving incarcerated individuals of reasonably adequate medical care violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. But who decides what is reasonably adequate?

 The Jail Health-Care Crisis

The opioid epidemic and other public-health emergencies are being aggravated by failings in the criminal-justice system.

 The Prison-Health Paradox

Incarceration can sometimes reduce mortality—but only when life on the outside is worse.

Articles of Interest

40% of incarcerated people have chronic conditions — how good is the health care they get behind bars?

A large proportion of incarcerated people have their chronic conditions diagnosed while in prison. But experts say quality care can be hard to get.

Do prisoners trust the healthcare system?

Individuals who are incarcerated have greater healthcare needs than non-justice-involved individuals, yet incarcerated individuals often report substandard care. There are disproportionate numbers of black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in prison, who, even in general society face greater obstacles to accessing healthcare and have worse health outcomes due to structural racism.

Health Care Behind Bars: Missed Appointments, No Standards, and High Costs

Each year that someone spends in prison cuts their life expectancy by two years. Mass incarceration multiplies that impact on a societal level: if not for incarceration, the U.S. life expectancy would be five years higher.

Hundreds of incarcerated people are dying of hep C — even though we have a simple cure

John Ritchie shouldn’t have died. He knew he had hepatitis C. And he knew, too, about the simple, once-daily pills that could fully cure him of the potentially deadly viral infection in about 12 weeks.

I Spent Three Strange Days on a Prison Bus to See a Doctor

When getting a few minutes with a doctor means spending hours and hours handcuffed to another inmate and wondering about the world outside.

In the U.S., Mentally Ill People Are Ten Times More Likely To Be in Prison Than in a Hospital

The number of mentally ill people in prison is going up, and the number in hospitals is going down.

Incarceration and Health: A Family Medicine Perspective

Family physicians have an interest in advancing policies that improve the health of all people, with a special focus on the most vulnerable members of our communities. Incarcerated individuals and those detained in immigration facilities are disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions, mental illness, and substance abuse. However, they tend to receive inadequate health care before, during, and after incarceration or detention, further exacerbating their disadvantage.

Jail Is a Death Sentence for a Growing Number of Americans

In Houston’s jail, where the population is at its highest in a decade, 24 people have died this year. More than half had a history of mental problems.

Jailhouse Doc

What’s the health care system like in prison?

On surviving—and leaving—prison during a pandemic

Prisons’ crowded, communal nature is the stuff of transmission nightmares. People live, work, eat, and recreate together—often in poorly ventilated buildings.

Prison healthcare so bad it would be shut down on outside, say doctors

Doctors tell of understaffed services, with patients missing hospital appointments due to clerical errors or lack of escort.

Prisons and Health

Prisons are not healthy places. Communicable diseases are frequently transmitted among prisoners, and the rates of HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis are much higher among them than in the general population. There is also a high prevalence of mental health problems, including substance abuse disorders, and a higher prevalence of noncommunicable diseases. Unhealthy conditions such as overcrowding and poor hygiene are common in many prisons.

Prisons Are the New Asylums

A very short book excerpt.

Prisons Have a Health Care Issue — And It Starts at the Top, Critics Say

When coronavirus hit federal prisons, the top officials had no health care experience.

Prisons try to adjust as their inmate population grows older

A growing portion of the country's prison population is older than 55. That's meant higher costs for prisons and new efforts to provide care for advanced medical needs of the incarcerated.

Public Health and the Epidemic of Incarceration

An unprecedented number of Americans have been incarcerated in the past generation. In addition, arrests are concentrated in low-income, predominantly nonwhite communities where people are more likely to be medically underserved. As a result, rates of physical and mental illnesses are far higher among prison and jail inmates than among the general public.

The Science of Solitary Confinement

Research tells us that isolation is an ineffective rehabilitation strategy and leaves lasting psychological damage.

Why It’s So Impossible to Get Decent Mental Health Care in Prison

Prison, as a rule, harms incarcerated people’s mental health. Prisoners are separated from their loved ones. They have no privacy. There is constant noise. They are frequently assaulted by fellow prisoners and staff.

‘I Begged Them To Let Me Die’: How Federal Prisons Became Coronavirus Death Traps

Prisons quarantined sick and healthy inmates together and continued moving prisoners and staff around facilities as the outbreak spread.