Prisoner living conditions & treatment?

[steve-in-kville]

From today's local news:

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/ ... 06502.html

I'm all about reasonable living conditions for people behind bars, but then I think we need to bring back chain gangs, too.

I'm on the fence with this one... for now.

[Josh]

From today's local news:

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/ ... 06502.html

I'm all about reasonable living conditions for people behind bars, but then I think we need to bring back chain gangs, too.

I'm on the fence with this one... for now.

Chain gangs doing work outside could provide relief from the heat of sitting indoors all day.

[Szdfan]

1) Lancaster’s prison looks like a castle?

2) I think the prison has a (legal?) obligation to prevent prisoners from dying of heat stroke.

[Ken]

Over 90% of prisoners are eventually released to rejoin society.

I would suggest that we might want to think about how we treat them if we want them to have a stake in the society into which they will eventually be released.

[Josh]

1) Lancaster’s prison looks like a castle?

2) I think the prison has a (legal?) obligation to prevent prisoners from dying of heat stroke.

I agree. Did anyone die of heat stroke?

I regularly work in 90+° F conditions. So do many other Americans. And many of us don’t have air conditioners centrally cooling our whole house.

[Joy]

A good start for improvement would be that the facilities follow the requirements already set out for them in living conditions, food, etc.

[Szdfan]

1) Lancaster’s prison looks like a castle?

2) I think the prison has a (legal?) obligation to prevent prisoners from dying of heat stroke.

I agree. Did anyone die of heat stroke?

I regularly work in 90+° F conditions. So do many other Americans. And many of us don’t have air conditioners centrally cooling our whole house.

So you don't have a fan in your house? Or a window air conditioner? Or access to ice? What do you do to cool off?

[Soloist]

I know some will disagree, I think prisoners should still be treated with dignity and provided with basic care. AC? I don’t know… but I don’t think anyone should have to live in doors with 90+ temps.
I’m sure there is a threshold but I’m not going to speculate on what that is.
It’s been a sore point to me the lack of decent medical care for prisoners… being denied medication, poor evaluation and care…
Even if the nurses want to provide good care… I’ve heard their hands are tied.

[Szdfan]

I know some will disagree, I think prisoners should still be treated with dignity and provided with basic care. AC? I don’t know… but I don’t think anyone should have to live in doors with 90+ temps.
I’m sure there is a threshold but I’m not going to speculate on what that is.
It’s been a sore point to me the lack of decent medical care for prisoners… being denied medication, poor evaluation and care…
Even if the nurses want to provide good care… I’ve heard their hands are tied.

I have a friend doing six years in Illinois. Prison is hard -- it should be uncomfortable -- but prisoners also deserve to be treated with dignity. Sometimes I think cruelty motivates the system's treatment of prisoners.

[Ken]

I know some will disagree, I think prisoners should still be treated with dignity and provided with basic care. AC? I don’t know… but I don’t think anyone should have to live in doors with 90+ temps.
I’m sure there is a threshold but I’m not going to speculate on what that is.
It’s been a sore point to me the lack of decent medical care for prisoners… being denied medication, poor evaluation and care…
Even if the nurses want to provide good care… I’ve heard their hands are tied.

Buildings can be designed to be comfortable and livable without AC

Buildings can also be designed to be impenetrable secure fortresses with no chance of incursion from the outside or escape from the inside and in which many people can be securely guarded by few staff.

But I suspect those two objectives are in conflict. The architectural features that one would include to improve natural air ventilation are the opposite that one would include to make the building a secure fortress of cells.

So I think if we are going to imprison people in massive concrete cell blocks then some modern system of ventilation and air conditioning is pretty much essential. Especially in places with blazing hot summers like Texas.