The Other Death Sentence

The California prison system remains under federal judicial supervision for a variety of abuses, including massive overcrowding. Harsh sentences and a panoply of crimes passed by “tough on crime” legislators in better-funded times plus the rise of prison gangs who thoroughly train new generations of criminals with very few job prospects on the outside have created a perfect storm of social blowback. And for some of those serving time in older crumbling prisons, there are new risks that clearly impact those unlucky enough to be incarcerated in incubators of incurable diseases.

The HIV epidemic from shared needles and unprotected sex is well-known. What remains below the radar is a fungal infection with no known cure: coccidioidomycosis, or valley fever (named for the San Joaquin Valley). It is airborne, drifting even in mild breezes, and settles in the lungs, occasionally making its way into the skin, bones, eyes and even the brain. The Centers for Disease Control refers to the 20,000 people in the Southwest (see the penetration map above) who contract the ailment as suffering from a “silent epidemic.” While most victims survive, and most don’t even know they are infected, about 160 of those inflicted die from the disease, “with thousands more facing years of disability and surgery. About 9 percent of those infected will contract pneumonia and 1 percent will experience serious complications beyond the lungs.” New York Times, July 4^th. I’d show you some pictures of extreme cases, but it is even too much for my jaded eyes.

For those in the wrong prison in California at the wrong time, the disease is just a normal part of life. “The ‘silent epidemic’ became less silent [in late June] when a federal judge ordered the state to transfer about 2,600 vulnerable inmates — including some with H.I.V. — out of two of the valley’s eight state prisons, about 90 miles north of [Bakersfield]. In 2011, those prisons, Avenal and Pleasant Valley, produced 535 of the 640 reported inmate cocci cases, and throughout the system, yearly costs for hospitalization for cocci exceed $23 million.

“The transfer, affecting about a third of the two prisons’ combined population, is to be completed in 90 days, a challenge to a prison system already contending with a federal mandate to reduce overcrowding. Jose Antonio Diaz, 44, who has diabetes and was recently relocated to Avenal, is feeling ‘very scared of catching it,’ said his wife, Suzanne Moreno.

“Advocates for prisoners have criticized state agencies for not moving the inmates sooner. ‘If this were a factory, a public university or a hotel — anything except a prison — they would shut these two places down,’ said Donald Specter, the executive director of the Prison Law Office, which provides free legal assistance to inmates.” NY Times.

I’m picturing scenes from Les Misérables with ragged prisoners, bodies wracked with disease, chained and pleading for their lives. While our prisons might not be that extreme, given our extreme proclivity to imprison – with five percent of the world’s population but a quarter of those incarcerated – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are doing something wrong. Throw in that $23 million of extra treatment cost, and it does in fact seem that we really need to close and dismantle these outmoded breeders of death and disease… and engage in a ground-up review of why the United States cannot solve its judicial mess with a system of justice that is so out-of-touch with international standards. Why do we need to feed more “students” into these universities of advanced crime, most of whom are eventually released back into society, angry, bitter and trained for crime?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I truly am dumbfounded at the lack of awareness of the consequences for our traditional knee-jerk overreaction to issues along the way.