Instead of “rehabilitating” people in prison (physically, mentally, or otherwise), they are kept in a constant state of illness and despair. The Bureau of Justice statistics show a huge proportion of inmates are impacted by disease, disability, and mental illness.
What we want to focus on in this piece is the special needs of the elderly and infirm in Perryville. Instead of asking, “Should cancer prevalence be higher or lower in prison?” a better question is “Why should a 70-year-old with cancer and heart disease be locked up at all?”
The For-Profit healthcare vendors the DOC hires are designed to treat acute problems rather than to prevent chronic disease in the first place. Rates of medical problems are much higher for older people. For elderly inmates, the percentage of hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease is an astounding 78%!
The prison environment makes it difficult for people to pursue a lifestyle and diet that staves off these problems. Prison diets hardly promote public health. Incarcerated people are forced to eat what the public has been told for years to avoid. There is the famous “shmeat” served to Perryville women as “heart healthy protein. We know it’s chicken BY PRODUCTS…. PET FOOD is what it was intended to be. Look on your dogs’ chow bag right now and look at the first ingredient, I bet it’s Chicken By Products!
When we are sentenced to prison, why don’t they also add, ” And you will get NO fresh fruits or vegetables for the entire time you’re there.” 60% of the ladies here have disabilities. 78% for those over 65. Perryville is a makeshift nursing home!!
This is Arizona’s most wasteful, morally bankrupt policy to date. Our solution? Accelerate medical parole. Expand parole eligibility for those above 65 years old. This is known as geriatric parole. These reforms should go hand in hand with other decarceration efforts, like expanding earned good time credits.