Why prisoners deserve health care

It is not enough to be able to practice good medicine in a jail. Such practice must recognize the special needs of prisoners and the special problems inherent in the jail environment. Abstract Prisoners deserve to be taken seriously and treated with respect by the physician, as does any person seeking medical care. The research team, led by associate professor of medicine Emily Wang, M.

Half of them received primary care at a Transitions Clinic; the other half had similar medical and criminal justice histories and had access to primary care, but not at Transitions.

The study found that patients who received Transitions Clinic care were less likely to be reincarcerated compared to those in the other group.

In addition, clinic patients who were reincarcerated spent less time behind bars than those from the other group who returned to prison Kashef. Regardless of what side of the debate one is one regarding whether or not tax payers should foot the bill for the provision of health care to inmates, it is evident that in order to reduce costs and keep the rate of recidivism down, it is imperative for health care professionals to be better trained and educated in how to deal with the challenges of providing care to inmate populations.

Johnson, Steven Ross. Kashef , Ziba. Kirzinger, Ashley, et al. Kaiser Family Foundation , 10 June Paris, Joseph E. Scotti, Samantha. Meta, Inc. By Dylan Bestler Due to the rising costs of health care in the United States, many Americans are struggling to afford basic medical services. Challenges Prisoners are a challenging population to treat effectively. Kirzinger 41 states in America have mandated that correctional facilities charge their prisoners a copay but for a significantly reduced price varying by state.

Pew Approximately 20 percent of inmates in jails and 15 percent of inmates in state prisons have a serious mental illness.

This means that 36 percent of prisons operated by the United States are overcrowded. One of the largest contributing factors of this overcrowding is the incarceration of individuals for drug-related crimes. Drug users make up a large group of the inmates in United States prisons, according to the Bureau of Justice there are about 1,, people in federal prisons and of them, about 16 percent of inmates in state prisons and 47 percent of inmates in federal prisons were incarcerated for drug-related crimes.

Due to the new service fee assessed for medical care, prisoners are less likely to seek treatment and harbor illness that may be transmitted to other inmates. Michelle Andrews, a health care columnist, describes the likelihood of an outbreak of communicable disease within the prison as a result of inmate charges for medical care in Prisons and jails forcing inmates to cover some medical care costs Generally, when diagnosing an acute illnesses, the inmate is assessed for contagion and treated accordingly, however lack of funding may discourage a visit to the doctor for an examination.

Furthermore, an inmate with the flu, strep throat, or a stomach virus, may spread illness to other inmates. Inmates who are able to afford treatment also face re-exposure once placed back in the general population, adding to the likelihood of an epidemic. Since , the United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world and it is continuing to increase.

According to a recent analysis approximately 2. Aufderheide, The question of whether these criminals should be placed into mental health institutions or serve their time in prison has been unanswered. Criminals that are diagnosed with mental illnesses that are placed in prison, are assessed to identify what care is needed for them individually. This assessment allows for the physicians in the prison to prescribe medication, but this is the extent of the care that mentally ill inmates receive in prisons.

The practice of mass incarceration in the state prison system is an epidemic that stretches far beyond the stringent sentencing guides that are imposed by the state legislatures. This crisis is one that is attributed throughout all levels of the government. As a result, America has suffered both economically and socially because of mass incarceration.

The United States prison population has more than quadrupled due to harsher penalties for non-violent offenses Mass Incarceration in the USA. There are roughly thirteen times more men imprisoned over females. In the race category minority inmates are locked up more frequently in all age brackets under Additionally, forty-five percent of the inmate population is considered to have committed non-violent crimes.

Department of Justice, , p. Lee, When compared to Canada and countries in Europe, the United States hands down longer prison sentences for the same crimes.