Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jun 2006
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Jerry Seper

PRISONERS, PUBLIC AT HEALTH RISK

High rates of disease and illness among inmates in the nation's jails 
and prisons, coupled with inadequate funding for correctional health 
care, has put the nation's 2.2 million prisoners at risk, along with 
corrections officers and the public, a report said yesterday.

Every year, according to a report by the 21-member Commission on 
Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, more than 1.5 million people 
are released from jails and prisons nationwide carrying 
life-threatening contagious diseases, and another 350,000 inmates 
have serious mental illnesses.

"Protecting public health and public safety, reducing human suffering 
and limiting the financial cost of untreated illness depends on 
adequately funded, good quality correctional health care," the report 
said. "Unfortunately, most correctional systems are set up to fail.

"They have to care for a sick population on shoestring budgets and 
with little support from community health-care providers and public 
health authorities," it said.

The commission, co-chaired by former Attorney General Nicholas de B. 
Katzenbach, is based on a lengthy investigation and hearings, which 
included testimony from corrections professionals, prison monitors 
and litigators, former prisoners, scholars and others.

The inquiry focused on the "crucial role of oversight and 
accountability" in creating safe conditions in U.S. prisons and 
jails, and on the nature and prevalence of gang violence.

"The questions 'who's watching' and 'who's responsible' are at the 
beginning and end of dealing with all of the problems we've 
examined," Mr. Katzenbach said.

The report also concluded:   Violence remains a serious problem in 
the nation's prisons and jails, with "disturbing evidence" of 
assaults and patterns of violence in some U.S. correctional 
facilities. It said corrections officers reported a near-constant 
fear of being assaulted, and prisoners recounted gang violence, rapes 
and beatings.

Violence and abuse are not inevitable, but the majority of prisons 
and many jails nationwide hold more people than they can accommodate 
safely and effectively, creating a degree of disorder and tension 
almost certain to erupt into violence.

Because lawmakers have reduced funding for programming in the 
country's prisons and jails, inmates are largely inactive and unproductive.

The increasing use of high-security segregation is counterproductive, 
often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to 
recidivism after release.

People who pose no threat and those who are mentally ill are 
"languishing for months or years" in high-security units and supermax prisons.

Better safety inside prisons and jails depends on changing the 
institutional culture, which cannot be accomplished without enhancing 
the corrections professional at all levels.

Because the exercise of power is a defining characteristic of 
correctional facilities, there is a constant potential for abuse. The 
report will be presented today at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary 
subcommittee on crime, corrections and victims' rights.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman