Does Dale Maisano Get Better Food?

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

During the reform, Bobby Dean Nickels was terminated for a non-tolerance rule of theft in 2011. It was common practice of taking items from the cafeteria after hours, and then the next day paying for them. Before checking with the cafeteria for payment Nickels was terminated immediately for taking a bell pepper. He filed a wrongful termination suit, claiming age discrimination. Nickels had a clean record, with no write ups for the seven years previous to the takeover. Nickels was sixty-four years old at the time, oversaw maintenance and up keep for the plant. In court proceedings, it was proven that his new supervisor, Marrero, was on a mission to cut costs at the La Mirada facility, by replacing older, higher paid employees with part-time and temporary employees. He increased the workload for older employees, forcing them into retirement, and used write ups for errors and ethical violations, creating the basis for termination. The Court was satisfied with the evidence presented to award Nickels three million, two hundred thousand, dollars in compensatory damages and thirteen million in punitive damages (Nickle,

We were able to locate and review the lawsuit Robert Coleman v CDCR, et al. In the complaint the plaintiff alleges that he was moved from a bunk bed cell to a side by side cell, which he claims seriously affected his mental health disorder (schizophrenia). The inmate states that when he informed the C/O that he could not stay in the side by side cell the C/O retaliated against him by placing the inmate in a small cage that he had to stand in for approximately seven hours. According to the inmate, his medical disability prohibits him from standing for long periods of time and subsequently experienced right knee pain and swelling. The inmate also indicates that his placement in a modified program violated his rights against lack of yard time

Michael Tarver is a 55 year old man who is serving a life sentence for murder in Atlanta, Georgia. Tarver is a diabetic with circulation problems, while in jail he got a cut on his leg. After receiving this cut he went months in confinement without proper care and because of his diabetes he was prone to infection and had to have his leg amputated. In 2012 Tarver filed a lawsuit written in longhand and filed without the consultation of an attorney. Dr. Chiquita Fye is the 65 year old woman who has been the medical director at this prison since 2006. This “lawsuit asserted that Fye was deliberately indifferent to his injury as he languished for months in the prison infirmary. Deliberate indifference to a prison inmate’s medical needs violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” (The Associated Press) Many inmates have filed lawsuits against this doctor all complaining that she neglected them of proper care. And there is so many other cases out there showing that prisons do not give proper care to inmates who need it.

One problem in America is how inmates are treated. They are not treated like humans but rather animals, and dangerous to people. However, this is untrue. Some prisoners are not dangerous and some even assumed innocent. Our jail and prison systems treat offenders like they are trash and not worthy of anything in life. Therefore when they claim that they are sick they do not get adequate health care.

California’s prison system is facing a number of infrastructure changes as a result of a judicial decision that came down from the United States Supreme Court, Governor of California et al v. Plata et al. California’s prison system was deemed inadequate and dangerous due to severe overcrowding which led to “needless suffering and death” (Rogan, 2012, 262). The court ruled that the State must reduce the number of inmates in California’s thirty-three state prisons. This ruling came about after two class-action lawsuits were filed, Coleman v. Wilson in 1990 and Plata v. Davis in 2001 (Rogan, 2012, 261). These lawsuits were filed by inmates that claimed they received poor medical and mental health care within the State’s prison health care system (Vicini, 2011,1). The evidence presented in these cases showed several shortcomings in California 's prison health care system (Rogan, 2012, 264).

Each day, men, women and children are put behind bars suffer from lack of access to medical health care. Chronic illnesses go untreated, emergencies are ignored, and patients with serious illnesses fail to receive needed care. A small failure to medical care can turn in to death of an inmate if left untreated. Prisoners are humans whether inmates or not, with normal health issues or diseases. Even a common cold is an example of an illness that needs treatment. A lot with what is wrong with the health care system today, in the United States deals with money. Within prisons, it is an entire different story. The mission of medical care is to diagnose, comfort and cure. These goals are not being achieved within the prison system. Care needs to be given to every inmate, even the most despised and violent one among them all.

There are always poor conditions in the local jails every day that are talked about, and still nothing will never get done about it. Local jails are usually crowed into small cells. Odors are often strong and sickening food served does not always taste

We also need to realize that these inmates are getting better well fed than our homeless people out on the streets. None of this can make sense. These people on death row are criminals. They did something horrible to get themselves in there. Why are we taking care of them? Of course they are in chains all day, but they have a bed and a toilet. They can even take showers. Why can we do that for our homeless? Instead of wasting our tax paying money on the death row inmates, can we just waste it on our neighborhood homeless people that we see about everyday out on the streets? According to Scott Keyes from the Bill Moyers Company, it costs $21,000 more to

Freedom and confinement is the third most important theme in the movie, the Shawshank Redemption. There are many aspects of the inmates talking about what freedom is like, and how they are confined to Shawshank prison for a long time. In Shawshank they quite literally cannot do anything they want, they have to ask for everything. This can be no better seen than when Captain Byron Hadley said, “You eat when we say you eat! You s*** when we say you s***! You p*** when we say you p***!” Not only is this line of thought present in a fictional prison, but also in real life. There are TV shows out there that follow the cops of real life prisons, and real life prisoners do not have much more freedom. Then again, all things considered, prisoners have some freedoms, mainly in what they do during their yard times. The people who have it the worst, the one’s who have it like the quote, are the people who live under complete dictatorships. They cannot do anything, and I mean anything without the consent of

In 2006, United States District Judge Thelton Henderson ruled that federal oversight of the state prison system was needed after determining that an average of one inmate per week died as a result of medical malpractice or neglect (Californiahealthline.org). Prisons are sometimes very understaffed not to mention that they are not equipped to handle the different types of illnesses that are brought to the prison by

As unhealthy as they seem, prison foods are "relatively nutritious" (Barclay 6). Most of the foods in prison are have vitamins and nutrition which are healthy. Prisons serve meats, cereal, vegetables, fruits, and more to their inmates. However, they have to start ordering more and more of these meals because " prison population has increased so enormously over the last 40 years, driving the cost per meal... all the way down to $2.30"(Barclay

Your post was very genuine and stated how you truly feel. “Some prisoners also work in facility services such as the kitchen, laundry, cleaning, maintenance and gardening (State of Victoria, 2015, para. 2).” This is for all inmates to gain experience in jail, so they come into the community to do well. Also, most inmates that work in the kitchen are trained in the prison to become chefs. Additionally, this is the only way prison meals are served. Further, not even death row prisoners are exempt from working. The only rule is if the inmate it 65 and older or medically unstable to work (State of Victoria, 2015, para. 1). Therefore, the prisoners are working. The government just hasn’t put forth any means of making them pay for the medical services.

Cook was not living a good life once he landed in jail, but he did not deserve to be treated like a piece of meat. A former prison guard, Vasquez said, “It happens all the time. Several responses that I can remember are, 'You need to grow some and defend yourself. Quit

Morsi, who has diabetes, described the meals served to him as "very bad", and has refrained from eating prison food "because he senses it is not safe for him," state news agency MENA reported.