Evolution of Prison Healthcare

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Prison Health Care and the Issue of Cost Jennifer Lewis Historical Overview-Jennifer Lewis In the constrained economy, providing healthcare to prisoners poses an economic challenge. Ultimately, fiscally challenged local, state, and federal agencies struggle to meet the legal requirement to provide healthcare for an escalating prison population with limited resources. Opponents of prison healthcare argue that prisoner healthcare should be eliminated. Eliminating inmate healthcare allows funds to be allocated to serve the needs of tax paying citizens, instead of non-tax paying inmates. Compelling interests exist, which make providing healthcare to prisoners a priority. To understand the underlying compelling interests, an examination of how prisoner healthcare laws evolved from ethical mandates to laws promulgated by the highest court of the land aimed at ensuring that prisoner healthcare become nothing short of an essential service provided to all inmates across the country. Providing care for prisoners did not always present a priority on either local or national levels. Prior to the 1970’s, the prison healthcare landscape reflected a piecemeal approach at best which provided little or no medical services to prisoners (Newport, 1977). One essay crafted in 1977 memorializes a climate where prisoners were “frequently denied access to needed medical care” and the care “provided” proved “. . . grossly inadequate in quality and accessibility. . . given without basic considerations of human dignity” (Newport, 564). Accordingly, the 1970 Department of Justice survey of jails confirmed, “49 percent of the nation’s 4,037 local jails maintained no medical facilities” (Newport, 1977, 565). As the public became aware of the conditions in prisons, the public began to denounce such practices of failing to provide any real care for prisoners on any consistent level (Newport,

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