Thursday, December 31, 2009

A Personal Perspective on Prison Healthcare

Some readers may recall the excellent posts that appeared in the SF Bay Guardian politics blog for a while, authored by an unnamed inmate in a CA facility. Now released from prison (congratulations, and welcome back!) Just A Guy continues to post about his experiences.

His recent post in the Guardian criticizes Governor Schwarzenegger for the decision to appeal the Plata/Coleman ruling.

Don’t Arnold and the state government see this isn’t about just health care for inmates, but also about rational laws, rational sentencing, and treating human beings with dignity and respect? I know the majority of the public would rather bury its head in the sand than face this issue, but this issue is in your living rooms, in your classrooms, and on your streets. It isn’t just the gang-banging jerk from the hood that’s being thrown in jail for ridiculous amounts of time in California -- it’s also middle class addicts, college students etc … It’s your neighbors, your friends’ kids, and your kids that are all affected by this insanity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would argue that we also need to care -- and deeply -- about the "gang-banging jerks from the hood" getting sent to prison in California. Part of our collective downfall is that we only seem to care about social welfare issues when they affect our neighbors, our friends' kids, and our families.

Hadar Aviram said...

I agree. The separation between "us" and "others" is a false one in a universe in which one in a hundred citizens is behind bars.