(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #231 - Anticarc?ral When prison sickens (fr)

Despite improved medical care in prison for twenty years, the prison remains unable to 
provide solutions to medical and psychological problems of inmates are... when it does not 
generate. ---- "They pamper me for me to do my entire sentence." In his cell in the 
hospital bed that he was installed, ZS meets its way to my question: "Are you well 
groomed? " The transfer to a nursing home was denied by the civil parties and thus he 
continued his sentence (imprisonment with 27 years incompressible) fighting against a 
"long illness" in recidivism. Recurrence, a word he knows: second conviction for similar 
offenses and fifteen years of detention in counter. He enjoys daily visits from a nurse, 
care, morphine patch, conversation, moral comfort.

It is true that since the creation of units and outpatient consultations (UCSA) in 1994, 
prisons have a quality equivalent to those offered outside care. Many and many inmates are 
were able to get tested and treated for serious diseases (hepatitis, HIV, etc..). Medical 
evaluation is positive, even if at some and say some inmates are, the frequency of passage 
of healthcare staff leaves a little to be desired.

More than a hundred suicides per year

But what about all these mental pathologies generated by the violence experienced or 
practiced outside and within the walls of detention? All these humiliations to endure all 
these physical assaults between inmates first or supervisors? This sexuality more or less 
granted practiced without protection?

A recent study shows that 55% of inmates are in prison come with serious psychiatric 
disorders [ 1 ]. The inmate are dead after a suicide attempt are numerous. On average, a 
little over a hundred a year, six times more than the "free" community. Still following 
this study 30% to 40% of prisoners suffer from addictive problems (alcohol and 
psychotropic combined). The majority of those affected entering jail on charges related to 
mental illness were they really a chance to heal these destructive impulses in a place 
originally invented to "monitor and punish," as Michel Foucault wrote?

Despite the remarkable work done by therapists in regional medical and psychological 
services (SMPR), confinement, lack of privacy, idleness, inability to project a coherent 
future and especially violence generate psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders among 
inmates are. Prison makes you sick.

There a few weeks ago, a young man of 19 years died in prison of Health following a 
accidental fall while walking, lack of proper care. Sad ending for this kid. This 
situation is likely to recur as the ratio between the medical / educational and law 
enforcement will not be reversed. This finding is recurrent and is the key to another care 
transgressive behavior in our society.

About ZS, he died as a result of his long illness, with the rest of his nurse and doctor.

Pierre (AL Bigorre)

[1] D. Vasseur, head doctor of the prison of Health, 2001.