Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Mental Health In Prison: The Unintended But Catastrophic Effects Of Deinstitutionalization, Felicia Mulholland

Touro Law Review

Prisons and jails are not adequately equipped to manage the ever-growing population of mentally ill inmates. Despite deinstitutionalization efforts, prisons have steadily become the new psychiatric hospitals and unfortunately, because of the lack of treatment and the ability to properly supervise this population of inmates, these individuals are dying by their own hands at an alarming rate. This Note argues that the lack of proper care for mentally ill inmates is a violation of their constitutional right, despite their incarcerated status. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) should incorporate more concrete and universal rules and regulations for the …

Parens Patriae, Punishment, And Pandemics: The State’S Responsibility For Incarcerated Persons During A Public Health Emergency, Meredith Harrell

Journal of Law and Health

This article looks at the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 and explores the commonalities and differences of states’ actions to protect their citizens, especially the most vulnerable populations. The article discusses the government’s obligations to jailees and prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic and how incarcerated persons have been consistently failed by the institutions that are required to protect them. The article examines possible remedies for these governmental and institutional failings under the Eighth Amendment and § 1983 civil rights claims. Ultimately the article proposes that monetary damages would provide relief to incarcerated individuals and their families …

The Reincorporation Of Prisoners Into The Body Politic: Eliminating The Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy, Mira K. Edmonds

Articles

Incarcerated people are excluded from Medicaid coverage due to a provision in the Social Security Act Amendments of 1965 known as the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (“MIEP”). This Article argues for the elimination of the MIEP as an anachronistic remnant of an earlier era prior to the massive growth of the U.S. incarcerated population and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. It explores three reasons for eliminating the MIEP. First, the inclusion of incarcerated populations in Medicaid coverage would signify the final erasure from the Medicaid regime of the istinction between …

(Un)Masking The Truth - The Cruel And Unusual Punishment Of Prisoners Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ariel Berkowitz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Argument For Explicit Public Health Rationale In Lgbtq Antidiscrimination Law As A Tool For Stigma Reduction, Heather A. Walter-Mccabe, Killian M. Kinney

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Bloody Hell: How Insufficient Access To Menstrual Hygiene Products Creates Inhumane Conditions For Incarcerated Women, Lauren Shaw

Texas A&M Law Review

For thousands of incarcerated women in the United States, dealing with menstruation is a nightmare. Across the country, many female prisoners lack sufficient access to feminine hygiene products, which negatively affects their health and rehabilitation. Although the international standards for the care of female prisoners have been raised in attempt to eliminate this issue, these stan- dards are often not followed in the United States. This Comment argues that denial of feminine hygiene products to female prisoners violates human de- cency. Additionally, this Comment considers possible constitutional violations caused by this denial, reviews current efforts to correct this problem, and …

Prisoners With Disabilities, Margo Schlanger

Book Chapters

A majority of American prisoners have at least one disability. So how jails and prisons deal with those prisoners’ needs is central to institutional safety and humaneness, and to reentry success or failure. In this chapter, I explain what current law requires of prison and jail officials, focusing on statutory and constitutional law mandating non-discrimination, accommodation, integration, and treatment. Jails and prisons have been very slow to learn the most general lesson of these strictures, which is that officials must individualize their assessment of and response to prisoners with disabilities. In addition, I look past current law to additional policies …

The Silver Tsunami: Aging Prisoners, Early Release, Guardianship And Prisoner Advocate Initiatives For Long Term Care Beyond The Prison Walls, Martina E. Cartwright

Journal of Aging, Longevity, Law, and Policy

No abstract provided.

Correspondence Between Self-Report And Interview-Based Assessments Of Antisocial Personality Disorder, Laura Guy, Norman Poythress, Kevin Douglas, Jennifer Skeem

Norman Poythress

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is associated with suicide, violence, and risk-taking behavior and can slow response to first-line treatment for Axis I disorders. ASPD may be assessed infrequently because few efficient diagnostic tools are available. This study evaluated 2 promising self-report measures for assessing ASPD—the ASPD scale of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4 (PDQ-4; S. E. Hyler, 1994) and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; L. Morey, 1991, 2007)—as well as the ASPD module of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–IV Axis II (SCID-II; M. B. First, R. L. Spitzer, M. Gibbon, J. B. W. Williams, & L. S. Benjamin, 1997). The …

Human Rights Infringements In Brazil’S Penitentiary System Understood Through Access To Healthcare, Sara Morris

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Brazil has a reputation of being home to some of the worst penitentiary conditions worldwide, eventually leading the United Nations to make an appeal to the Brazilian government in 2003 to analyze their systems and make necessary improvements. The poor conditions and lack of access to legal counsel, living space, and specifically healthcare, cause riots and uprisings within prisons that in the past have lead to death of prisoners and guards. Prisons serve a very specific purpose in society, and according to most social theorists that is to reform, not to torture. In Brazil there is no capital punishment, so …

Prison Health Care After The Affordable Care Act: Envisioning An End To The Policy Of Neglect, Evelyn Malave

Faculty Publications

Inadequate prison health care has created a health crisis for reentering prisoners and their communities—a crisis that is exacerbated by barriers to employment and other collateral consequences of release. This Note will first examine how current Eighth Amendment doctrine has failed to sufficiently regulate prison health care so as to have any significant effect on the crisis. Next, it will argue that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) alters the Eighth Amendment analysis by triggering a change in the “evolving standards of decency” that guide the doctrine. Specifically, this Note will argue that, after the passage of the ACA, releasing sick, …

Toward A Right To Counsel In Civil Cases In New York State: A Report Of The New York State Bar Association, Laura K. Abel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unshackling Shawanna: The Battle Over Chaining Women Prisoners During Labor And Delivery, Elizabeth Alexander

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Prisoner's Constitutional Right To Medical Information: Doctrinally Flawed And A Threat To State Informed Consent Law, Robert Gatter

All Faculty Scholarship

White v. Napoleon and its progeny recognize a substantive due process right to receive the disclosure of medical treatment information. While each case involves a prisoner receiving treatment while in custody, the constitutional right described in those cases is not limited to prisoners. Instead, the right is described as belonging to all individuals. Consequently, this line of cases is poised to interfere with the disclosure standards that operate in state informed consent law in the many instances where state action exists. This Article argues that the substantive due process right recognized in White should be overturned. The right is based …

Judge William Wayne Justice: A Life Of Human Dignity And Refractory Mules Tribute., Albert H. Kauffman

St. Mary's Law Journal

Judge Wayne Justice had a deep impact on the lives of many people and was an unyielding advocate who protected the rights of all U.S. citizens. Many of the Judge’s orders and consent decrees forced Texas to comply with more stringent federal requirements in education and health care and had a far reaching effect across the nation. Judge Justice presided over Doe v. Plyler that ensured the benefit of public education for the children of undocumented immigrants. In United States v. Texas, Judge Justice required that the Texas Education Agency monitor school district actions and policies to assure that they …

Discharge Planning For Mentally Ill Inmates In New York City Jails: A Critical Evaluation Of The Settlement Agreement Of Brad H. V. City Of New York, Doug Jones

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biomedical Research Involving Prisoners: Ethical Values And Legal Regulation, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Until the early 1970's, approximately 90% of all pharmaceutical research was conducted on prisoners, who were also subjected to biochemical research, including studies involving dioxin and chemical warfare agents. By the mid-1970's, biomedical research in prisons sharply declined as knowledge of the exploitation of prisoners began to emerge and the National Commission for the protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical Research was formed. Federal regulations to protect human subjects of research were established in 1974. Special protections for prisoners were added in 1978, severely limiting research involving prisoners. However, the US correctional system has undergone major changes since the adoption …

Secondhand Smoke Signals From Prison, Scott C. Wilcox

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that courts should acknowledge current societal and medical perspectives on second hand smoke (SHS) and afford real protection to prisoners against SHS through injunctive relief. Part I examines evidence that conclusively demonstrates the serious risk of harm posed by SHS to the health of inmates. It reports that inmates' long-term exposure to SHS increases their risk of contracting lung cancer, heart disease, and other potentially life threatening conditions. Part II argues that, as required by the Helling standard, contemporary society does not tolerate involuntary, long-term exposure to SHS and that prison officials exhibit deliberate indifference by allowing …

Hepatitis C In Prisons: Evolving Toward Decency Through Adequate Medical Care And Public Health Reform, Andrew Brunsden

Articles & Chapters

Hepatitis C (HCV) in prisons is a public health crisis tied to current drug policy's emphasis on the mass incarceration of drug users. Prison policy acts as a barrier to HCV care by limiting medical care for the infected, especially drug users, and by inhibiting public health measures addressing the epidemic. This Comment argues that courts mistakenly limit prisoners' Eighth Amendment right to basic medical care when they defer to prisons that apply HCV policies as categorical rules of treatment. Where current standards of care mandate individualized patient evaluation for treatment, prison policies that eschew this principle exhibit deliberate indifference …

Hunger Strikes At Guantanamo: Medical Ethics And Human Rights In A “Legal Black Hole”, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Being Human, a collection of readings assembled by President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics, contains a powerful description of the force-feeding of Soviet political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky, who was on a hunger strike to protest the refusal of prison authorities to provide a lawyer for a fellow inmate who was awaiting trial:

They started feeding me forcibly through the nostril. By a rather thick rubber tube with a metal end on it. . . . The procedure will be that four or five KGB guys will come to my cell, take me to a medical unit, put a straitjacket …

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New Strategies For Prisoner Rehabilitation In The American Criminal Justice System: Prisoner Facilitated Mediation, Jeremy Coylewright

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Protecting Parolees Under The Ada And Rehab Act, Giovanna Shay

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Prohibition Of Death Row Prisoners As Organ Donors: A Possible Lifeline To Those On Organ Donor Waiting Lists., Donny J. Perales

St. Mary's Law Journal

Organ transplantation continually brings hope and new life to thousands of patients suffering from a myriad of diseases. Despite the advances in medical science and the increased survival rates of organ recipients, many are unable to receive an organ transplant because the demand for organs drastically exceeds the available supply. Much of the organ deficit lies in the current system of organ procurement. The altruism-based organ system leaves the donative decision to the individual; however, it is this system which hinders effective organ procurement. Under this system, the donor must give prior consent before a doctor can remove any organ. …

Beneficial And Unusual Punishment: An Argument In Support Of Prisoner Participation In Clinical Trials, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Currently, approximately 1.8 million people are incarcerated in the United States at any given time. A disproportionately large percentage of the prisoner population has serious illnesses, such as AIDS and tuberculosis. Prisoners most often, however, are barred from participation in clinical trials, even when conventional therapy has failed, and experimental treatment might provide them with their only hope of survival.

Much of the reluctance to include prisoners in biomedical research is based on history. In the past, prisoners have been severely abused and even tortured in medical studies conducted in the Nazi death camps, Japanese prisoner camps, and correctional facilities …