[ad_1]
Re: “WA jails have among the highest death rates in the U.S. A new law to explain why isn’t working.” [March 26, Northwest]
Sydney Brownstone’s vital article on Washington state’s excessive jail demise charge requires lacking explanations from state officers. Deliberate indifference to the intense medical wants of incarcerated individuals violates the Eighth Modification’s prohibition in opposition to merciless and weird punishment. This month the New England Journal of Medication known as “Well being Care in U.S. Correctional Services — A Restricted and Threatened Constitutional Proper.”
Brownstone factors out that the issue goes far past suicide prevention for the mentally unwell. The issue extends to how greatest to supply well being care to our incarcerated residents. Washington state jails use certainly one of two completely different methods: both care from nationwide personal for-profit companies or from advert hoc contracts to native teams. Each approaches obtain widespread criticism. However is one system higher than the opposite?
Larger transparency on Washington state’s alarming demise charge inside its jails, as Brownstone’s article urged, could assist reply this vital query.
Richard O. Cummins, M.D., Seattle, Emeritus Professor of Emergency Medication, College of Washington Medical Middle
[ad_2]
Source link
