Suppose a person is sentenced to life in prison without parole, and he has a heart attack and needs a bypass operation or he will die. Or, he gets cancer and needs chemotherapy. What happens then? Is the state responsible to help him live as long a life as possible, or only to make the person comfortable for what is left of his life?
He’d get medical treatment or, possibly, be released to take care of it himself, I’m guessing. I believe John Gotti’s being treated for cancer.
Generally, the government (state/federal/county) is responsible to provide health care for those who are incarcerated.
YOur question will become more and more significant as states like CA deal with stringent life wop sentences for multiple felons as they age and become more infirm.
Now, the quality of care will vary. Certainly cosmetic surgery is out. For example, my state (MI) has gone through several changes in health care services in the past number of years, from having doctors etc on staff, to contracting services out.
And, remember, many places have instituted prisoner pay plans where if the prisoner (think Christian Slater for example) would have to repay not only for their room and board while incarcerated, but for medical costs.
As posted, I believe that in most cases, such surgery/medical care would be required to be performed. Though of course, YMMV. Transplant for example? might be considered to be elective surgery in some cases. Now, of course, keep in mind especially for heart attack cases, speed of treatment is critical, and might not be happening in a prison setting as quickly as on the outside.
This is just starting to bew an interesting issue in the UK as we are just starting to get elderly prisoners.
The overwhelming majority of prisoners will of course be released but the difficulty is in obtaining treatment for chronic conditions which may need many hospital appointments.
Some jails have operating theatres and can handle very serious illness, the staff are called in from the local hospitals, these prisoners are considered to be such a risk that any movement outside the confines of prison takes a great deal of planning.
There is some talk of designating one or two prisons for elderly inmates, one that I know of has been installing lifts.
Take a look at these,
http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/demography/notyet/nyged01.html
Wring you may find this very interesting.It goes into current provision state by state.
http://www.fcc.state.fl.us/fcc/reports/final99/1eld.html
here is what is happening in Europe, apparently it is not age that is the main problem in prisoners debilitation and death but AIDS, not surorising really with the current drugs problem.(In the UK monitoring section)
INtersting, thanks much casdave.
As I’ve watched my state (MI) continue with it’s 'lock ‘em all up’ mantra over the years, it’s been interesting watching the fallout from that plan - we were ‘exporting’ inmates for a while (not enough bed space for all of them, so we paid Virginia to house a couple thousand for a while), and we’re continuing to build away.
Recently, there was a special task force assigned to attempt to look at not only ‘truth in sentencing’ (yet another program to increase the amount of time already convicted and sentenced people remain in prison), but to assess the potential costs as well. A board member of mine was on that comittee, found it very interesting.
Of course, as long as campaign strategies of ‘tough on crime, but my opponent is soft on crime’ work, we’ll be facing many more of these questions in the future.
From a legal standpoint, inmates are wards of the state and therefore the state has to take every reasonable step to preserve their life, even in cases where the inmate might not wish it. I personally have called judges and gotten court orders to authorize medical treatment of life threatening conditions when inmates have refused the doctors permission to give them the treatment.
In New York, an inmate with a terminal illness will theoretically have his sentence commuted and be released before he dies. But I say “theoretically” because this law requires both a judge and a doctor to sign a declaration that the inmate has a terminal disease from which he will not recover or relapse and will not be able to commit any criminal actions before his death. It’s difficult to get them to commit to such a broad declaration, so usually terminally ill inmates die in a hospital still under the custody of the prison system.
Isn’t one of the big-name serial killers receiving female hormone treatments so he can grow breasts for his cellmate/lover? I saw something about this on TV once, and thought it was pretty fucked up.
I’ll take “Why do I know these things?” for 500 Alex.
Richard Speck, killer of 8 student nurses in Chicago in the 1960’s. Five years after he died (died 1991) a video came to light that was shot in the prison, showing RS snorting cocain with other inmates. He strips to a pair of women’s panties in the video, he appears to have breasts. I don’t believe that they were able to verify hormone treatment.
here’s a link showing some pics from the video, judge for yourself. (shows him in the panties, shirtless) http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/speck.html
This has nothing to do with the thread but what the heck.
hijack
Richard Speck is the one who comes immediately to mind. He was convicted in the late 60’s or early 70’s for killing multiple nurses. He, and another inmate, made a videotape showing them doing drugs, having sex, and generally having a good 'ole time in prison. Speck wore panties and had “breasts” that he grew by taking female hormones.
/hijack
Marc
Bizarre story: I seem to recall a guy on death row somehow slashing his wrists. They took him to the infirmary, stitched him up, and executed him two weeks later.
Does this make sense to anyone?