You Can’t Get Whatever You Need at Aliceville’s Health Services – Update for July 7, 2020

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

REASON MAGAZINE MAULS FCI ALICEVILLE HEALTHCARE

Reason.com, a libertarian magazine and website, published a lengthy investigative piece last month shredding the quality of healthcare the Federal Bureau of Prisons provides female inmates at FCI Aliceville.

prisonhealth200313The article is detailed and deeply researched. At one point, it cites the compassionate release of inmate Angela Beck last year. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles (Middle District of North Carolina) found that the BOP made Angela wait two months for imaging after she first found lumps in her left breast. Then she had to wait eight months for a biopsy, which confirmed the cancer, and two more months for surgery. By that time, the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, requiring a radical mastectomy. Five more months passed before Beck’s first appointment with an oncologist, who determined that it was too late to begin chemotherapy at that point.

Judge Eagles wrote that the neglect Angela suffered “likely reached the level of a constitutional violation,” and that if she remained in BOP custody, she would continue to face “a substantial likelihood of substandard medical care for her life-threatening disease.”

The government, of course, opposed release, arguing that Angela’s “medical issues,” that is, the appalling negligence, “d[id] not qualify as a terminal medical condition or debilitated medical condition.” Judge Eagles thought otherwise, and released Angela so she could get some decent care at home.

Reason noted that although its article focused on Aliceville, “this story could have been written about any number of prisons or jails. Medical neglect of incarcerated people is a problem across the country on federal, state, and local levels. It’s a national disgrace—the kind people prefer to ignore. Prison officials downplay or hide the scope of it, there is a high bar for inmates trying to bring Eighth Amendment lawsuits challenging prison conditions, and the public by and large pays little attention to what happens behind prison walls.”

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The magazine received a message about an inmate being taken to Health Services with chest pains. “My friend told me that that lady today in medical kept saying, ‘I am going to die, I am going to die’,” the message continued. “And she did … but did she have to?”

The article said, “That’s a question Reason has been asking for the last year, and a question the BOP appears to have no interest in answering.”

Reason, These Women Received a Death Sentence for Being Sick In Prison (June 30, 2020)

United States v.  Beck, 425 F. Supp. 3d 573 (MDNC, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

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