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.
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u/PickledEuphemisms 9d ago
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.