Haylie Ramirez

Health Care inside the U.S. prison systems.

On the outskirts of our state lies a whole different world, a seemingly dark and scary one

at that, hidden away and shunned by society. It is a world where time can seemingly stand still,

also known as the United States jail system. Cold, concrete walls where there is only a tiny

glimpse of hope that hides behind all the shadows of a life that has ended behind these bars,

where your life can seem that it has come to an end.

Other than the interview that I did and I will talk about in a moment, I have been using

other resources from my criminal justice classes to help with sources for this essay and research.

Reading more and more about these issues and trying to find correct information and statistics on

the death rates has been difficult, no one seems to know much and a lot of these issues get

pushed under the rug.

I decided to interview a close family member of mine, my uncle Anthony, who recently

returned home after being part of the prison system. I chose not to use his full name because this

has been so recent I don't want anyone looking up his crimes or anything.

After asking him about what it was like being stuck inside of the dull gray walls, and how

his life was about to drastically change once he stepped through those heavy metal doors.

Learning from him opened my eyes more, even though I am a Criminal Justice major, this really
opened up more doors for me to learn about what life can be like and how humans are treated

like animals behind these walls.

One of the first questions I had for him was about his personal experiences with the

medical staff inside the jail, and what it was like for him during his time there. He told me that

there were healthcare providers for the facility, not the inmates, they were usually very short

with the inmates and were never much help at all inside the jail. They don't have the required

medical tools to be successful for the inmates that are in need of assistance and usually only

consist of a janky, small medical kit which can sometimes be a few months old and not sanitized

between different people.

Another thing he had told me was that the medical section was segregated away from the

others and was only used for very seriously injured inmates, or it was commonly used for

hospice care for certain inmates. Which after a quick Google search told me that the purpose of

hospice inside jails was according to an article by aging.gov “to keep the individual comfortable

and make their remaining time as meaningful as possible” which I think is ridiculous, no one

wants to be dying while incarcerated, sometimes their family being unknowing of their loved one

dying.

I had asked if there was anything else he wanted to add to this paper, and he told me

about how the prison system is a place of no hope and nothing good ever comes out of it, in the

little time he was there, many people came and went, many were there for life, it is a cold and an

uncomfortable place for human beings to be, beds not comfortable and there were minimal

supplies to keep yourself clean and keep your space clean, it is unsanitary and the inmates are

responsible for cleaning their cell and keeping their “common” area clean.
 Asking him these questions really shows how inmates, real-life human beings are treated

inside the prison systems, they are treated like animals who will be stuck inside a cold and dark

place for the rest of their lives. The cops who are supposed to be helping rehabilitation are not

doing their job and are giving these people less and less hope of a good life after jail. Nothing

really prepared me for what this interview would have been like, but I am glad that I was able to

spread the message about our jail system and what it can be like inside these dark places.

After finding more resources to back my topic up on why this is so important to educate

yourself on these real-world issues going on around us. I found images about the statistics of

how people have died inside the prison system. This graph I found shows the overall cause of

deaths inside jails the highest being Illness, meaning that these people got no real help from

medical staff or were ignored while they were incarcerated. Yes, it could mean they did get help

and ultimately died from natural causes, but there are illnesses where you can get medicated for

certain diseases to get the help you need.

 Going off of another source I have found talked about how prison systems have not been

prepared enough for their growing population since the rates for people over 45 years old has

more than doubled over the past three decades. According to prisonpolicy.org “ Mortality has

become an urgent issue in places like the Louisiana State Penitentiary (“Angola”), where the

average age is over 40 and the average sentence is longer than 90 years. With thousands of aging

adults facing the prospect of dying in prison in the coming years, how are prison systems

preparing to handle the increased physical and psychological needs of the graying prison

population? In short, they’re not preparing at all.”

Having encountered limited sources, I trust that upon reading this essay, will show the

significance of acquainting oneself and others with the dynamics of our prison systems and their

operations. By educating oneself and actively contributing to the cause, one can effectively aid

real individuals grappling with these circumstances, thereby fostering positive change within our

society.

Ways you can help this cause is by researching and educating yourself on this issue,

perhaps trying to fund towards better medical care and send letters to congress, etc. Being able to

have that knowledge on this topic and what is happening is very important for things to change

inside the jails and for there not to be a massive amount of deaths.
Works Cited

California Department of Aging. "Hospice Care." California Department of Aging.

https://www.aging.ca.gov/Care_Options/Hospice_Care/#:~:text=Formally%20speaking

%2C%20hospice%20care%20is,time%20as%20meaningful%20as%20possible

National Center for Biotechnology Information. "Understanding the dynamics of fear in severe
chronic illness." PMC
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10729313/

Prison Policy Initiative. "State of the Union: the prison system is killing us." Prison Policy
Initiative, 13 Feb. 2020
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/02/13/prisondeaths/