Isolation and Rethinking

Co-conspirator for Justice ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469656250.003.0012 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 169-189

Author(s):

Susan M. Reverby

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Federal Prison ◽

Prison Health ◽

Prison Health Care

Rather than be corrected or seek penitence, Berkman used his prison time to write to his friends, comrades and family, and to rethink his political trajectory. Often in isolation, and moved around without notice, he tried to figure out how to do his time, make a life and escape the incompetence of prison health care. Sent to Connecticut to stand trial for the robbery, he was given a concomitant sentence along with his federal prison time, then was charged, along with several of his comrades, on a federal conspiracy case.

Download Full-text

A Conspiracy for Life

Co-conspirator for Justice ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469656250.003.0014 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 206-232

Author(s):

Susan M. Reverby

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care System ◽

Mayo Clinic ◽

Cancer Care ◽

Federal Prison ◽

Prison Health ◽

Prison Health Care ◽

Care System

Once again, Berkman’s cancer care was delayed, mistreated and ignored in the prison health care system. As he would tell a CBS News interviewer on “60 Minutes,” if he hadn’t been a doctor, he would have died because again and again only his own knowledge and actions saved him. Sure that he would perish if their trial went on as planned, his comrades agreed to plead guilty and to take harsher punishments so that he would be severed from the case. Sent to a federal prison near the Mayo Clinic, Berkman finally healed and was released in July 1992.

Download Full-text

Behind the Wall of Indifference: Prisoner Voices about the Realities of Prison Health Care

Laws ◽

10.3390/laws10010011 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 11

Author(s):

Barbara H. Zaitzow ◽

Anthony K. Willis

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

General Population ◽

Infectious Diseases ◽

Correctional Facilities ◽

Prison Inmates ◽

Prison Health ◽

Prison Health Care ◽

Public Scrutiny ◽

Poor Ventilation ◽

Violent Assault

While most Americans never see or become ensnared in the nation’s vast correctional system, there are unprecedented costs—economic, social, and ethical—that are being paid, one way or another, by everyone in this country. It is no secret that prison inmates face health threats behind bars that equal anything they face in the streets. Violent assault, rape, or the outbreak of highly infectious diseases are much more common in correctional facilities than in the general population. Prison conditions can easily fan the spread of disease through overcrowding, poor ventilation, and late or inadequate medical care. Effectively protected from public scrutiny, the prison health care system has almost zero accountability, thus escaping outside attention to serious failures of care. If you want to know about the practice of health care in prison settings, ask someone who has been “in” the system. Prisoners have a story to tell and this article gives voice to the experiences of those who have been directly impacted by the provision of health care in the prison system.

Download Full-text