Introduction
The US prison system limits the rights and liberties of prisoners by refusing them any of the basic rights accorded citizens. These rights include the right to practice religion, court access, due process rights, mail rights, medical care rights, the right against overcrowding, and visitation rights (Prisoner Rights). The increase in the liberties of prisoners occurred against the backdrop of the historical abuse of power of the prison system, as well as the increased awareness of the need for prison systems to follow constitutional processes and procedures in treating prisoners.
Main body
The Prison Litigation Act of 1996 “severely restricts the ability of federal courts to ensure constitutional conditions for prisoners.” Many states have decided to follow the example of the federal government and have set up the same kind of prisoner restrictions. Also, the prison population in the US has tripled over the past fifteen years, and the incarceration rate in the US has become the highest in the world. The consequences of these are overcrowding, taxed health care, and increased violence (About the National Prison Project).
These actualities point to the inadequacy of the rights given to prisoners to achieve better conditions of incarceration for themselves. Therefore, rights groups should be rightfully allowed to secure those better conditions through class action lawsuits intended to secure those “constitutional conditions of confinement” and strengthened prisoner rights (About the National Prison Project).
During the 1960s and the 1970s, the prisoners’ rights movement swept across the country, with every aspect of correctional operations coming into judicial scrutiny (Jails and Prisons). The rise in litigation beginning in the 1970s is immediately attributed to the twin phenomena of mass incarceration and overcrowding in prisons that led to prison riots and revolts, with litigations focusing on getting relief from the conditions of poor health care and increased violence bred by those two phenomena (Vogel).
Litigation on the conditions and overcrowding had the greatest impact, as seen by a third of all prisons in the country being ordered by the state and federal courts to address both issues. It is said that inmates do not have a right to privacy in their prison cells. The relevant Supreme Court case on the issue is Hudson versus Palmer in 1984, in which the ruling was that “society is not prepared to recognize as legitimate any subjective expectation of privacy that a prisoner might have in his prison cell…”, supported by a Second Circuit decision in the civil rights action Willis versus Artuz (No right to privacy in a prison cell).
The non-privacy extends to mail, where prisons have historically served the role of mail censors who have the power to reject mails for a variety of banned content such as mail written in code, mail containing information on how to brew alcohol or make drugs (Prisoner rights).
Inmates do have some degree of privacy rights, such as the right to medical confidentiality (Court upholds transexuals’ privacy rights). The law is not clear about the use of men officers in female correctional facilities, and the explicit rights of women in such an arrangement, so that reports of sexual assault and harassment are only rarely dealt with punishment of the correctional officers involved (Women in Prison).
Recent findings show that there are quite a number of elders behind bars who encounter problems while in the institution, particularly on healthcare needs. Studies conducted by the federal and state prisons, specifically on women, report poor health conditions of elderly inmates. Failure to provide adequate service for the needs of the elderly inmates are not attributed to pure disregard for their health care but primarily because the increase in their number has not been fully anticipated to build up thus, their conditions are susceptible to various inadequate assistance and care while they are behind bars.
The growing baby boom population is one of the obvious reasons why there is such thing as an unanticipated increase in the population of elderly inmates. More of them enter the criminal justice system and eventually grow old in prison cells.
Considering that elderly inmates are growing in numbers, the local, state, and federal corrections systems are faced with the challenges of how to handle this special group together with its special concerns. There have been various practical approaches applied to this group such as “integrating theoretical concepts… covering medical, gerontological, psychological and social aspects” which incorporate “…the current state of our prisons, crime patterns among the elderly, problems associated with long-term inmates, the treatment of older women prisoners, and the possibility of an elderly justice system” (Aday, 2003).
Moreover, overcrowding and health care concerns are not the only problems encountered by them. The concerns on mental health services, staffing, and the availability of other essential programs and resources are significantly lacking.
In order to find solutions, the local, state, and federal correctional systems put up correctional programs that deal with the problems that are associated with them. These correctional programs present implications as well as recommendations that formulate social and criminal justice policies. They, all together, are used as valuable resources for criminal justice professionals, health providers, policymakers, social workers, and those sectors who take the issue very important. A study by Walsh (1992) revealed that “a random sample of inmates over 55 revealed that elderly inmates, in fact, have different needs than younger inmates”.
He found that while the younger inmates “desire more freedom, social activity, and mental stimulation,” older inmates need “more preventive care, orderly conditions, safety and emotional feedback and support from families” (Jones et al., 2001, para. 2). In this connection, the most common approaches used to address the elders’ special care requirements are the following:
- A provision of specialized medical care like putting up “chronic clinics, preventive care, and increased frequency of physical examinations (National Institute of Corrections, 1997)” (Jones et al., 2001, para. 3);
- In Florida, Texas, the government provides “physical therapy, work opportunities, and special recreation” (Jones et al., 2001, 3). For staffing requirements who attend to elderly inmates, there are specialized training “to understand the social and emotional needs of older offenders, including the dynamics for death and dying, medical and nutritional concerns, procedures for identifying depression, and referral processes (Chartier, 1999)” (Jones et al., 2001, para. 4);
- Innovations in health care programs have been developed to provide clinical care at a distance. “Telemedicine is a rapidly evolving field in the healthcare industry” which makes use of electronic communication and information technologies, like the phone lines, camera, microphone, blood pressure cuff, and stethoscope (Jones et al., 2001, para. 5). This form of health care significantly reduces the time and costs of transporting patients, particularly the elderly inmates to health care centers or hospitals;
- In line with the requirement of having mental health services, managed care systems are in place to address this area of concern. If such systems are implemented correctly, they promote preventive health care addressing common cases like depression and senile dementia;
- In some states like Maryland, they offer options for elder inmates to utilize or avail of the compassionate release, which is “a form of release (that) offers medical parole for chronically and terminally ill inmates whose needs are better met in the community” (Jones et al., 2001, para. 6). This is one way of reducing the overcrowding problem of elderly inmates;
- Policymakers and criminal justice professionals take into consideration recent studies conducted in relation to the growing concerns of the elderly inmates. Statistics and related information are used to come up with their “proactive plans” and measures for purpose of improving the conditions of the elderly inmates in the future.
Conclusion
In the long run, we see that the search for better handling of inmates must be an ongoing concern of the local, state, and the federal corrections systems as well as by policymakers and by the government. The inmates’ growing population is not something that must be taken aside because more serious problems on health care and costs are likely to happen if this concern is not attended to immediately. There must be proactive plans to be implemented to counteract, if not, to prevent the risks confronting this problem.
Actions like assessing current correctional systems programs against program effectiveness and implementation efficiency may be considered; the tracking of healthcare expenditures and evaluating their nature may be necessary in order to know if there are better ways to deal with the increasing costs to maintain the increasing population. Furthermore, the development of new and better programs must continually address the concerns of the inmates. These require planning the programs on healthcare services, on the promotion of life skills, and reintegration of inmates into the community.
References
About the National Prison Project. American Civil Liberties Union Website. 2001. Web.
Aday, R. H.. (2003). Aging Prisoners Crisis in American Corrections. Praeger Publishers.
Jones, G., Connelly, M., & Wagner, K.. (2001). Aging Offenders and the Criminal Justice System. State Commission on Criminal Sentencing System. Web.
Jails and Prisons. Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. 2005. Web.
No right to privacy in prison cell. Talk Left. 2002. Web.
Prisoner rights, litigation, and correctional law. Prisoner rights and correctional law. 2004. Web.
Vogel, R. Silencing the cells: mass incarceration and legal repression in US prisons. Monthly Review. 2004. Web.
Walsh, C. E. (1992). Correctional theory and practice, Aging inmate offenders: Another perspective. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers.
Women in Prison. Amnesty International USA. 2005. Web.