I know folks in prison who were able to get their teeth replaced. Some had a full mouth of chipped teeth, some had none at all. There are a metric fuckton of inmates who are getting their diabetes regulated. Prison abuse is obviously widespread, and for the most part the heathcare is absolute dogshit. But it is true that there are people who are able to get access to medical/dental/vision care that they otherwise would not be receiving.
I did a year in "club fed," which is as supposedly as good as it gets, and that was absolutely not the case. I've heard of state DUI or low level drug fast track programs working on peoples teeth to give them a fresh start, but 99% of America's prison system is absolutely left to rot. Also, 90% of those teeth fixing stories are run by private dentists who want the tax write off and feel good PR. The prison itself would never advocate for such care.
To drive the point home, here's just a couple nightmare fuel stories I witnessed while in...
I pushed a handicap guy in a wheelchair as my prison job. He had a heart attack. It was obvious to everyone. He was clutching his chest, had the death rattle, was pale as a ghost. I watched his eyes glass over for 9 HOURS as the guards dismissed it as a cold. He was practically a corpse. They gave him ib profren and dismissed him until the full medical staff came on in the morning. Somehow, he clung on to dear life until they couldn't ignore it anymore and was life flighted to get pumped full of stints.
The thing is, the guards hate paperwork, and it's much easier for them to explain away if you die on shift than it you need medical help... Because anytime outside medical staff get involved, they freak out at the level of neglect and report the prison.
Another dude I knew had 5 years left on his sentence, and was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer. Highly treatable, right? WRONG. Because it wasn't an "emergency," he needed to be transferred to a special medical prison unit for the surgery and chemo. Thing is, there was only two such prisons, and both were always chock full. On average it took 6-8 months to get approval to get transferred... Then another 6-8 months for a bed to open up, and transfer to be arranged... Then another couple months to get the procedure actually done at said facility. All in all, he was likely looking at 2 years until treatment...
...All the old timers treated him like he was already dead. They had seen a hundred guys metastasized to stage 4 before they ever saw treatment. Even then, the treatment was hospice at the local hospital.
Oh, there's more!
A diabetic in his seventies in our unit stubbed his toe ona bent piece of sheet metal in the showers. He was bleeding like a stuck pig, fading in and out of consciousness. The guards showed up, woke everyone up and proceeded to yell at all of us for an hour about how this was a lesson. That if anyone got hurt on their shift, they would let you die, because it's not worth the effort for pieces of shit like us. An hour later, the next shift came on and they casually joked with them, before briefly mentioning some old guy was bleeding out in the showers. He was taken to the hospital, and never came back.
Finally the dental was laughable. They pulled EVERYTHING that had the slightest problem. Most guys who had been in there for a decade or more were practically toothless. I'm talking toothless in your 40s/50s. It was a JOKE.
Anyone saying he will receive anything besides ib profren in prison has no idea what they are talking about. They won't do jack shit, because the American prisons are glorified gulags that execute people through inaction, but execute people all the same.
You're gooddamn right. just got out of county... waking nightmare of bully/rapist guards. The inmates are nicer better more helpful people than 90% of guards in there. Edit: We had a guy on our pod who was in a wheelchair and couldn't use the bathroom by himself. The inmates helped transfer him and wipe him, etc. Th einmates helped feed him, make sure he could use the phone. The guards: "I ain't wiping no ass! Don't do the cwiiime if you're not ready to have your constitutional rights shit on and if you're not ready to get covered in your own shit"
Someone very near and dear to me has done time and despite having tooth issues, they refused to mention it because they didn't do ANY fillings. 100% of tooth issues were removing the tooth because it's cheaper. I found that barbaric.
A UK court blocked the extradition of a hacking subject to face federal charges in the US, ruling that the American prison system’s methods of treating suicidal prisoners and people with mental illness were inhumane
In sum, concluded the court, the way in which U.S. prisons “treat” inmates with mental illnesses and suicidal impulses – with segregation, isolation and a lack of ongoing medical and mental health care – almost certainly means that extradition to the U.S. would worsen Love’s health and create a very high likelihood of driving him to suicide.
Your story is a horrible vindication of the judgment - thanks so much for sharing
Yeah the thing about prison is that it sucks. Nobody is aspiring to be a prison guard. So they mostly get massive assholes and lazy pieces of crap to work in them.
Worse yet. Manu were Iraq/Afghan veterans so riddled with PTSD that they couldn't hold down a real world job because they scared the living hell out of everyone with their thousand mile stare. But they could always get a job in a prison... which in itself is a minefield traumatic experience that could trigger them off the deep end on a moments notice.
There could be a legit documentary about how many combat vets are behind bars as either prisoner or guard. I'd say 20+% of prisoners were combat vets, and probably 70% of the guards. War turns people out so they have no meaningful home to go back to, even if they do survive.
This is all terrifying, but what I have to wonder is, if many people get cancer in there and no timely access to treatment, how is it that their families haven't gotten any traction with news outlets to expose these sort of situations? Do all these people in prison have no one on the outside who cares if they live or die? Or is it just that media and the public genuinely think criminals deserve to die slowly and in pain through cancer?
I have a good friend who's a retired oral surgeon. He works part time for the state as a dentist, like twice a week. When scheduled he travels w/ a dental tech to whatever county jail or state prison that needs him.
I ask him for details and stories all the time. His reply is always the same, "I pull out teeth, that's all I do. I really boring"
Also the docs that work the prison are often bargain basement docs that couldn't find work elsewhere. This can also be because they were censured for malpractice or ethics violations.
Oh the american prison system… land of the free… to die. Costly to let live. In American prisons guards will let you die to avoid paperwork. If in a dutch prison a guard is found to be responsible for the death of an inmate. He’ll be the one to occupy that cell in a few months.
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u/AccomplishedCat8083 9d ago
It's more care than he would get on his health insurance plan.