Healthcare in Prisons is Extortion
By Benjamin Kirtland
A constant theme in recent politics has been the necessity of healthcare. Whether it should be government provided, whether it is a right instead of a privilege, and how much it should cost are all debated heavily. The Affordable Care Act is just one symbol of our democratic process successfully making a change in healthcare. As time and public opinion change, so will the system. However, prisoners do not have this democratic privilege. It is the right of government and prisons alike provide adequate healthcare to incarcerated individuals.
The fight for prisoners’ healthcare rights began in the 1974 case Estelle v. Gamble, in which J. W. Gamble was refused medical treatment for an injured back for three months straight. In response, the court claimed that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs” violates the Eighth Amendment, citing it as, “Cruel and unusual punishment.” In the forty years since this case, however, there has not been much improvement.
One of the most profound effects on prison healthcare is the fact that it still costs prisoners money. There are currently required healthcare copayments in 35 states, going directly from the prisoner to the prison. And the designed purpose of these copayments is not even to increase prison revenue, but to decrease prisoners’ use of their own healthcare. For example, Virginia and Pennsylvania’s copays compensated about 0.3% and 0.15% of all money spent on prison healthcare respectively. The real money gain comes from denying prisoners the ability to seek medical treatment.
On top of the copayments, prisoners also need to pay for their daily hygiene items. These items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste can cost anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00, which is equivalent to multiple days of pay for most prisoners’ jobs. While menstrual hygiene products have recently been made free for federal prisons, prisoners in state and local prisons still have to pay. To put this in perspective, a box of 16 pads costs prisoners the equivalent of 21 hours of pay. That is not an efficient and effective healthcare system. All of these basic health products should be provided free of charge. They are a human right, not a luxury.
Importantly, there is also little opportunity for prisoners to receive mental health treatment. According to the Department of Justice, only about one-third of all prisoners with mental health issues get treatment, while inmates are five times more likely to have mental health issues. This major problem goes directly against prisons’ claim to reform. If a prisoner has a mental health issue that goes untreated while they are incarcerated, chances are that it will extend into their lives once they get out, causing their high recidivism rates. When given treatment, these rates drop substantially and decrease the chance of being placed in solitary confinement, which has been shown to even further increase mental issue problems.
However, it is just as important that the healthcare system people go into once they leave prison is also effective at tackling physical and mental health. This is how we are going to keep people from landing in jail, by providing affordable healthcare to help treat the existing mental health issues of the population and making sure that no one goes bankrupt due to expensive health care procedures or lack of insurance. Healthcare is filled with nuance, yet what is concrete is that there is a change needed in our healthcare system and the prison’s healthcare system in order to substantially reduce the number of prison inmates for the future and help the inmates of the present.
