Ever ask yourself what the punishment for committing a crime that involves incarceration really is? I suspect that varies depending on where you are. In Mexico and much of central America, the prisons are vast cages where the population pretty much regulates itself, most from gang leaders and an economy loosely linked to the outside world. People die, get beaten badly, are forced into de facto slavery and, if they have no source of money from the outside, have a miserable existence with a fairly short life expectancy. If they are not gang members, they probably will be. Gang leaders do well in this world.
On the other side of the spectrum is Scandinavia, where the punishment is solely incarceration, but in a decent environment where forks and knives are permitted for cooking, often by the inmates themselves who frequently dine with unarmed guards. Norway, for example, provides a clean hotel-like environment. “Prison sentences are mainly meant to take away the freedom from the criminal, and have that as the main punishment. Norway really embraces this concept, and still keep treating the criminals as human beings who don’t have other rights taken away from them… This means that inmates will have access to some type of entertainment, are able to have a healthy diet with enough food, feel safe, have the opportunity to live in a clean environment, and are generally able to life a somewhat normal life inside the prison cells.” The Norway Guide.
Maybe American prisons beat incarceration in Central America, Russia, Thailand and vast swaths of the developing world, but as we all know, they are hotbeds of gang violence, horrible and dramatically unsanitary conditions, crumbling infrastructure, awful food and increasing over-crowding. Oddly, most US prisons are only a slight cut above that third world vision of prison. Picture what life is like in a very confined and even more dangerous, overcrowded environment… in an American prison where basic healthcare is supposed to be provided, when a highly contagious disease breaks out.
This time, I am not even talking just about the COVID debacle but all sorts of diseases that fester in US prisons across the land. Mark Bunin Benor, a family physician who worked in the Los Angeles County jail system from 2018 to 2023, wrote this piece for the April 2nd Los Angeles Times: “During my five years as a doctor in Los Angeles County’s jail system, I personally saw hundreds of patients with hepatitis C who were not being treated for the potentially deadly but curable disease. While hepatitis C treatment improved incrementally during my tenure, the system continues to fall woefully short of the sort of concerted effort that could dramatically reduce the toll of the infection within and beyond the jails.
“Hepatitis C, a viral, blood-borne liver disease, is very common in the jails. More than a third of inmates tested are positive. That suggests the number of people living with the virus in the nation’s largest jail system is likely in the thousands.
“Hepatitis C is new enough to medical science that until the 1980s, it had yet to be formally identified and was known only as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.” Thanks to the marvels of modern molecular biology, it’s now well described, and the available medicines cure almost every patient who takes them.
“Untreated hepatitis C nevertheless continues to claim the lives of about 14,000 Americans every year , a higher toll than that of HIV. Because these deaths are preventable, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal screening of adults for the infection.
“In this context, one might expect medical providers in jail to test for the disease broadly and treat it promptly. Monitoring and managing contagion is important in any correctional medical system, and it’s routine in ours for other diseases, such as tuberculosis and COVID-19…. Unfortunately, this wasn’t what I encountered in practice. All those taken into custody at the jail undergo a medical screening. But it’s usually cursory and doesn’t include an offer to screen for hepatitis C.
“When I started treating inmates in 2018, doctors rarely screened for the disease partly because known cases were almost never treated. The protocol was to consider treating patients only if their disease had progressed to a state of advanced liver fibrosis… What’s more, getting medication for a patient meant arranging a special police escort for an appointment at the county hospital and then waiting several more weeks for the antiviral pills to be delivered. The entire process took many months and generally discouraged treatment.” Yet prison life in the United States might even terrify Dante Alighieria, the 14th century Italian author who wrote The Inferno, describing the nine circles of hell. Nevertheless, there are people in government who still believe this can change.
Like the ancient Greek mythological tale of Sisyphus condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, on March 17th, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom began an effort to reduce our prison population and refocus on humane treatment and rehabilitation, announcing: “California is transforming San Quentin – the state’s most notorious prison with a dark past – into the nation’s most innovative rehabilitation facility focused on building a brighter and safer future… Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation.” I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’m Peter Dekom, and as the toxic vitriol poisons the political discourse in this country, as MAGA bigots continue to dehumanize desperate and basically kind people, you can guess what their feelings about prisons lie… until they become “patriotic hostage” from their violent and fraudulent felonies.
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