A Look at the Prison System

A quote from Dostoevsky in The House of the Dead. "The degree to which a society is civilized can be judged by entering its prisons." A similar quote was attributed to Winston Churchill in 1913.

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world with 25% of all prisoners being incarcerated here. The 33 California state prisons house approximately 160,000 inmates, 25,000 of whom are lifers. The remainder will be released at some point. The following are sites or stories about three of the inmate groups. One group are the women, another those suffering from mental disorders, and the third concerns the health of the inmates about to be released. A brief excerpt of the stories has been included.

Most of us know little or nothing about our criminal justice system but the New Testament in Matthew Chapter 25 verse 36, we are told to visit those in prison. While most of us cannot easily do that, we certainly can know what our system is all about and if it is satisfying the goals of justice to achieve peace. If it is, we should reward those in charge. If it is not, it is our Christian duty to correct the flaws.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0311/S00007.htm

VSPW is situated in Chowchilla in central California, adjacent to the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF). Together, these two prisons house more than 7,000 incarcerated women and constitute possibly the largest women's prison complex in the world...The large majority of prisoners are in the prison's general population and spend most of the day outside their dormitories in work, training or recreational activities. The SHU in VSPW is the highest security unit for female prisoners in California, housing prisoners... who are classified as a "threat to safety or security". Forty-six women were held in the SHU at the time of Amnesty International's visit, some for repeated, relatively minor, disciplinary infractions. Another 63 women were held in similar conditions in the Administrative Segregation Unit as short-term punishment, for "protective" custody, or pending hearings for disciplinary offences...Both before and during its visit to the prison Amnesty International received reports from prisoners and other sources that inmates were the victims of sexual abuse by some staff. Inmates reported that it was common for some male officers to watch them dressing and undressing and, in breach of the approved procedure, to touch their breasts and genitals when conducting pat searches. It was also reported that some guards used sexually - and sometimes racially - offensive language towards inmates... several guards were being investigated for sexual misconduct, including an alleged rape.

October 22, 2003 Study Finds Hundreds of Thousands of Inmates Mentally Ill
By FOX BUTTERFIELD

As many as one in five of the 2.1 million Americans in jail and prison are
seriously mentally ill, far outnumbering the number of mentally ill who are in mental hospitals, according to a comprehensive study released Tuesday.The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system...The report also found that the level of illness among the mentally ill being admitted to jail and prison has been growing more severe in the past few years. And it suggests that the percentage of female inmates who are mentally ill is considerably higher than that of male inmates."I think elected officials have been all too willing to let the incarcerated population grow by leaps and bounds without paying much attention to who in fact is being incarcerated," said Jamie Fellner, an author of the report and director of United States programs at Human Rights Watch. But, Ms. Fellner said, she found "enormous, unusual agreement among police, prison officials, judges, prosecutors and human rights lawyers that something has gone painfully awry with the criminal justice system" as jails and prisons have turned into de facto mental health hospitals.

Poor Health Status of Prison Inmates A Threat To Public Health
SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 28 /PRNewswire
National Commission on Correctional Health Care
http://www.ncchc.org/

Inadequate health care in U.S. correctional facilities poses a serious threat to the nation's public health, announced the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) today at this year's National Hepatitis Coordinators' Conference, calling for improved health care delivery and access in the corrections system. The findings are part of a landmark report commissioned by Congress to assess the health status of prison inmates, which concluded that serious diseases affecting inmates, such as hepatitis, if left undiagnosed and untreated, can be easily transmitted to the thousands of daily visitors, the half million correctional employees, other inmates, and members of the larger community once infected inmates are released.