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Medical And Mental Health Care After being in solitary confinement for 112 days J.I mutilated himself by cutting his penis using a razor blade on September 5, 2019, in Broward County Jail. The prisoner had a preexisting mental illness condition from 2007 and was booked in jail in October 2017 and two months later he was put in a suicide watch after telling the staff that he suffered from both bipolar and schizophrenia disorders and that he intended to hurt himself. He was prescribed for some antidepressants and antipsychotics drugs that he often refused to take and also food, he also showed signs of mental crises before being placed in solitary where he had various public masturbatory episodes.
In J.I case there were a few violations against him, one it is mandatory that a prisoner experiencing his mental condition is required to be assessed before and after he is from isolation, this did not happen for J.I case. In addition, during the solitary days, he was not assessed despite the red flags that his mental illness was deteriorating before his placement in solitary. While it is also stated that anyone with mental illness is not supposed to be put in solitary J.1 who had bipolar and schizophrenia was still subjected to the treatment and just as the scenario it turned out to be more harmful.
Women in Prison
Tammy Jackson was one unfortunate woman after she delivered in her jail cell alone, this was after she had experienced contractions from 3 am and it took hours before the correctional officers to reach a doctor who only came back the following day at 10 am. Tammy had been isolated and incarcerated without any medical care during this period of giving birth yet a few months before she was arrested she had been admitted to a psychiatric facility involuntarily. However, the saddest thing was that Jackson was not in jail because he had been convicted of any crime but as a pretrial detainee who had was being held for medical monitoring.
They are various rights of Jackson that were neglected one is that she was denied care yet she was pregnant, the correctional officers not only delayed in informing the doctor but the doctor only came the following day finding the patient had already delivered. In addition, despite the staff being aware of the detainee’s mental condition she was still denied the psychiatry care and only received it after the was admitted to hospital. The climax of it is that she was not a convict but only a detainee when this happened which bears the question of how the convicts themselves are treated.
From the above scenarios and the accusation, we hear every day about the experiences of prisoners in the prisons it is clear that in there the convict’s rights are not respected if not denied. Some efforts are being done like the bill that was passed that is aimed to ensure that the family connection is still intact by ensuring the convicts are held near home and that the visiting hours are increased. However, despite this being passed what matters is that the officers in the jails who are supposed to not only protect the prisoners but also address issues regard them as evil and hence treat them as punishment yet the prisons are supposed to rehabilitate criminals. There is much that needs to be done and the focus should not be on the bills but on the jails where the staff should not only be enlightened on their roles but also on the jail’s role which is to rehabilitate and not punish.
