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Dr. Jeremy Horne offers his expertise on whether or not prisoners deserve free healthcare

Be a Prisoner and Garner the Healthcare Benefits

By Elizabeth Leber on Oct 18, 2017
prisoner in cell
Prisoners get sick too.

This is not a common thought to have, especially as law-abiding citizens tend to ignore those deemed to be criminals, viewing them as outcasts who add no value to society. Yet with the cost of imprisonment reaching record numbers, it is no surprise that there is an outcry against prisoners receiving free healthcare.

According to U.S. News, "The cost of imprisoning each of California's 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year, enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over for pizza and beer."

And part of this expense goes to ensuring that prisoners remain healthy, a fact that outrages many upstanding members of society. It is easy to understand their irritation, especially with health insurance putting an ever-deepening hole in our pockets and a general outlook of ‘it’s their fault that they are incarcerated, why should we help them?’

According to CNN, “Almost thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners were entitled to receive adequate medical care, effectively creating prisoners' rights to health care.The irony is that there is no such right for law-abiding citizens, and in fact many inmates receive much better medical care when they are incarcerated than they had when they were free."

Yes, the costs of prisoners is expensive, but someone has to be liable for their basic human needs, which includes healthcare.

Dr. Jeremy Horne (International Institute of Informatics and Systemics) states, “In as much as they are charges of the State, then I would argue that it is the civic responsibility of the State to care for them.”

But is it fair to the law-abiding citizens who work 12 hour days just to support their family? Some might argue that it is better to be a prisoner than to work for your freedom. Is there is an underlying reason why jails are overcrowded, and the number of jailbirds continues to spiral out of control?

Horne mentions, “Among inmates in federal prisons (38.5 percent), state prisons (42.8 percent) and local jails (38.7 percent) respectively, suffered a chronic medical condition.” Horne continues by explaining, “Many inmates with a serious chronic physical illness fail to receive care while incarcerated. Among inmates with mental illness, most were off their treatments at the time of arrest. Inmates in the U.S. hardly are rehabilitated, they are often sent back out on the streets in even worse conditions than when they entered."

jail cell hands
These staggering statistics demonstrate a problem that is deeply rooted. Mental illness is not only a growing problem behind bars, but it continues to be a struggle in mainstream society as well. Convicted felons who are released are already going to have a difficult time finding and maintaining a job, so if they suffer a mental illness, the chances are even slimmer.

“I maintain society is disintegrating, that with increasing complexity in job requirements and meeting social problems, the average individual with average intelligence no longer can cope,” explains Horne.

Horne also elaborates on a personal experience. "When teaching at the Arizona Prison Complex in Douglas in the latter 1980s, I saw many examples of outstanding talent, intelligence and life-affirming activity in prison, and this forced me to reflect as to the 'why'. Why would these persons be incarcerated? (I also ask why many major political leaders also are not in prison, as they have often acted in the same manner as the inmates.) The U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates and numbers of prisoners in the world. This says something about society. Sociologists are well aware of subsocieties, and my experience teaching in a medium security facility confirmed this. Until we address the issue of alienation, ethos and integration, we will be no further along in prison reform than we were 100, 200 or any number of years before."

While some individuals may frown upon the idea of criminals receiving healthcare benefits, it is important to note that there are a number of criminals that are falsely convicted. Horne suggests that one should "research how many of them are falsely convicted (estimates of which I have heard are as high as 10 percent)."

“Until leaders realize that we are interdependent, that each person has value (rather than being a commodity, a "customer", or "human capital") and that cooperation and community, rather than destructive competition are more beneficial, then we will continue to have these problems, they are getting only worse as society decays,” elaborates Horne.

"All of that being said, one can’t help but wonder if prisoners need to change or the value system of the non-prisoners is what needs to change."
So, where do we go from here?

Horne states, "A person must be integrated into society to reduce the chances of alienation. As the old expression goes - and we will reverse it a bit here - 'what is good for the goose is good for the gander', the reversal being that inmates should be the paradigms of social integration. That is, if one can demonstrate that treating them humanely works to society's benefit, then think of what can happen with the overall population. Universally accessible healthcare (not this distorted thing we have now, where the drug and insurance companies are profiting from peoples' miseries) but a single payer system, where everyone can get healthcare. If this is not done, there will be this continued divisiveness, where the general population is pitted against the inmates."

Please be sure to like and share any comments about prisoners and healthcare on IGI Global's social media channels, including Facebook and Twitter, and be sure to check out the following authoritative references on this controversial topic.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of IGI Global.
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We have two threads of discussion here, one in criminology and the other in the philosophy of health care. The two often are confabulated in asking whether inmates should receive health care, that confounding resulting from the lack of understanding context. How and why did the inmates get to prison? What have been the social conditions? These social conditions ALSO shape how and why health care is not universally available to people. Those conditions also include the lack of guidance for those not able to cope in society, as in not having training, gainful employable, and other social support. A major reason why the US has THE highest incarceration rate in the world is the same as for its failing schools, lack of health care, failing infrastructure. It is the failure of a people through the government to take ownership of the problems causing society to deteriorate. Unless we address our ethos, these problem only will mount. What is YOUR ethos, your CORE value system?
Jeremy Horne6 years ago

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