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The Disturbing & Inhumane Conditions In Prison: Why The System Isn’t Working
by Jeff Roberts
Concerns about the efficacy of the prison system have been at the forefront of discussion lately. Earlier this year the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF) for the gruesome and filthy living conditions that the inmates are subject to. The facility is a privately owned prison which houses the severely mentally ill.
The lawsuit indicts the barbaric and dangerous conditions which leave prisoners underfed and held in rat-infested cells without working toilets or lights. The prison is hazardously understaffed, and prisoners routinely set fires to attract the attention of officers to respond to emergencies. Without sufficient staff to protect prisoners, rapes, beatings, and stabbings are rampant.
Some of the most sadistic violence is inflicted on prisoners by security staff. EMCF is supposed to provide intensive treatment to the state’s prisoners with severe psychiatric disabilities, but instead locks many in prolonged long-term solitary confinement – often for years – and denies prisoners even the most rudimentary mental health care services. Medical care is grossly substandard. One prisoner is now legally blind after EMCF failed to provide his glaucoma medications and take him to a specialist; another had part of his finger amputated after he was stabbed and developed gangrene.
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2014/02/the-disturbing-inhumane-conditions-in-prison-why-the-system-isnt-working/
