Why Are So Many Inmates at This Federal Prison Dying?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There are 100 federal prisons across the U.S. An NPR investigation found that a quarter of those deaths happened at one federal prison.
Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.
Inmates have a constitutional right to health care. Being denied care is considered cruel and unusual punishment.
But many of the sick inmates who wind up at Butner don't get the healthcare they are entitled to – and some end up dying.
NPR's Meg Anderson tried to find out why.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Daniel Alarcón, host of NPR Spanish Language Podcast, Radio Ambulante. |
| 0:04.4 | Our new season features surprising stories from Latin America. |
| 0:07.2 | In Mexico, a sculptor confounds archaeologists with brand new antiquities |
| 0:11.3 | and Costa Rica gentrification sparks a war in defense of endangered turtles. |
| 0:15.6 | In Colombia, a journalist's military ID is issued inexplicably |
| 0:19.2 | with the photo of Cristiano Ronaldo. |
| 0:21.1 | New stories every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:30.0 | The cost of healthcare behind bars is getting more expensive. |
| 0:35.6 | Over the past three decades, the population of elderly people serving time in state and federal prison |
| 0:41.1 | has skyrocketed. 15% of the men and women serving time are 55 or older, |
| 0:47.4 | and it's not just the elderly. |
| 0:49.2 | Prisons and jails are environments of risk. |
| 0:52.8 | Lauren Brinkley Rubenstein is an associate professor at Duke University. |
| 0:57.1 | She studies the health impacts of the criminal legal system. |
| 1:00.2 | People who are incarcerated on average have at least two chronic conditions, |
| 1:03.8 | so they tend to be very sick, more sick than the general population. |
| 1:07.7 | Inmates have a constitutional right to healthcare. |
| 1:11.6 | Not getting that care is considered cruel and unusual punishment, |
| 1:15.6 | but getting that care, it doesn't always happen. |
| 1:18.8 | It didn't happen for Jeffrey Ramirez. |
| 1:21.4 | So in this picture, my dad loved coming to the field trips to Shapiro with my grandma. |
| 1:31.7 | Yeah, this is at Legoland. |
... |
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