Prisoners when in jail fall ill regularly and have to be tended to in the prison. The prisoners cannot be taken out of jail so that they can receive the medical attention required for their illness. However, they may at times get terminal illness when in jail. The terminal illnesses may at times restrict their movement to their cells or in the wards of the prison where they do not get any type of moral support (FAMM 53). Every patient in the world needs some form of moral support in his or her bid to get better and overcome the disease that may be affecting him or her. Human rights guarantee the right of everyone getting the right medical care to guarantee high quality life. However, prisoners need to serve their time so that they can learn their lesson and ensure that the community is safe. Trying to get the balance between giving the prisoners the moral support in their fight against their illness and trying to keep the community safe by keeping the prisoners in jail becomes quite hard. Although there are strong cases and arguments for giving prisoners compassionate release once they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, certan cases exist where such patients should be granted the release.
Compassionate release occurs when inmates of any criminal justice system are eligible to be released on immediate notice on the basis of above normal circumstances (US Department of Justice 3). The abnormal or extraordinary situations are only considered if the circumstance could not have been foreseen by the court when the sentence to the inmate was being read. Compassionate release is only given to the inmates on the basis of medical reasons and not good behavior like in the case of parole. The prisoners that are released on parole are normally given parole due to good behavior when in the correctional facility. Examples of good behavior include not engaging in conflicts with other inmates and offering support for the duties that are supposed to be dine in the prison. Obtaining compassionate release process is different in different states but the main basic step of the compassionate release process is the petitioning of the warden or the court because the prisoner is terminally ill and would greatly benefit from the medical help that is found outside the prison walls. Some of the cases involving terminally ill patients include chronic conditions like advanced cancer. In this case, it is only fair and rational to give such patients compassionate release so that they can access high quality medical care and improve their conditions.
The compassionate release is only given to the terminally ill people who have a life expectancy of periods between six months and eighteen months (Anno et al. 12). The other way that the compassionate release can be granted to a person is when it is determined that the prisoner is of unsound mind and has debilitating physical conditions that would render the inmates unable to provide themselves with the basic self-care. Some of the prisoners suffer serious medical conditions. In some cases, they might be extremely depressed such that they only contemplate suicide all the times. An advanced age and the development of advanced age conditions would be another reason why the prisoners are given compassionate release because they would be unable to care for themselves when in the prison. In this case, it is rational for the prisoners to be allowed to leave their jail term early so that they receive adequate hospice care in the last days of their lives. Prisoners are also granted compassionate release due to family reasons but this is not the case in all states. The release may be because a minor child needs the care of the prisoner or if the spouse is debilitated and does not have any other family members who can provide the required care to him or her. The illness that would let the prisoner be released to take care of their spouse is when the spouse has a mental of physical disability, which is foreseen to be permanent. The release of the prisoners on the basis of the spouse’s health has a great number of critics and is not widely accepted all over the country.
Arguments for Compassionate release.
There are a number of people who advocated for the compassionate release of the prisoners while there are those people who are fully opposing to the thought of compassionate release for the prisoners. The people that advocate for the implementation of the compassionate release program cite a number of reason why it is advisable for the prisoners to be released upon their request for release. One of the reason is that the release of some of the prisoners would reduce the costs that are involved in the running of the correctional facilities (US Department of Justice 3). In some cases, the government may use up a large amount of money to ensure that the prisoners get their basic needs in the prison set up. The state may be incurring a lot of money in taking care of the terminally ill patients living in the prison premises. The release of the prisoners would help to reduce the burden to the government because the prisoners leaving the facility on the basis of compassionate release reduce the number of people that the government must tend to. When there are less people for the government to care of, there are excess funds that can be directed to other projects that will ensure that there is development in the country. Tax payers’ money is used in other development projects, such as building schools and improving the infrastructure of the state. Treating chronic conditions like cancer is very expensive. The burden that the state incurs in funding the numerous chemotherapy sessions is very huge.
The other advantage of the compassionate release program is that it gives the prisoners some form of moral support in their fight against the terminal illness (Murphy 53). Terminal illnesses mostly lead to the death of a person in a short time. When the prisoners have a terminal illness, they will naturally develop stress because they know that they are going to die in the near future. Because the prisoners are still human beings, they need the support of their parents and family members as they are living their last days in the world. Home hospice care is the best form of support that can be offered to such prisoners. The moral support provided by the family members and friends of the prisoners as they are fighting the illness is quite key because the prisoner feels loved and would less likely suffer from stress and depression during their time of illness. Although the prisoners may have messed in their earlier lives, seeing people that they love around them in their last days gives them some form of relief. When patients suffer from stress and depression as they are fighting illnesses, they will be more likely to suffer for longer and the fight will be frustrating because the prisoners may develop other mental issues because the depression levels may at times be quite high. When they are locked up in prisons, they feel as if no one understands what they are going through and that the whole world has decided to abandon them.
The other reason why the patients with terminal illnesses should be given compassionate release is because there are very limited health facilities in the prison system (Murphy 38). The health care system in the prison only provides the basic health services to the inmates and no special facilities are located in the correctional facilities. Some of the terminal illnesses require some form of specialized facilities so that they can be treated and the life span of the prisoner may be prolonged. Most of the medical equipment in the prison system are old and cannot take care of special illnesses that the prisoners may be suffering from. In addition, the equipment are rarely replaced, which means that the technologies used for assessing the terminal illnesses may not be very advanced. If the facilities are not present in the prison set up, then the prisoners need to be released so that they can access the required medical services that they need to fight their illnesses. The prisoners need to access medical services, which is their human right, and so the correctional facilities need to put into consideration the human rights of the prisoners and grant them release to get their basic human rights. They have the right to medical care once they fall sick. If the advanced facilities can be provided in the correctional facility, then the release would be irrelevant, but if the facilities are not provided in the facility, then the prisoners need to be released so that they can access medical care for their illness.
In the prison set up, some of the inmates that are detained have lifetime sentences. The prisoners that get lifetime sentences will age in the prison cells. The prisoners will greatly advance in age and start to develop complications that are associated with old age. There are a number of illnesses that are associated with old age and the required facilities to cater for the needs of these illnesses are not provided in the correctional facilities (Murphy 12). Such facilities can only be accessed outside the prisons and for this reason, the prisoners should be released so that they can have access to the required medical attention. In other cases, the old age of the prisoners may at times render the prisoner unable to care for themselves when in the prison. As the prisoners grow old, they generally grow feeble because of the stress associated with the prison set up and the natural loss of energy and strength that comes with the advancement in age. The prisoners should receive the compassionate release in these circumstance of old age so that they can receive the required medical care to ensure that they can live longer lives. They need to receive care from their loved ones.
The compassionate release may be because of the physical condition and the disability of the prisoner. In the prison set up, the laws that are applied are the survival for the fittest. When the people with disabilities are in jail, they are at a disadvantage because they are easy targets for the able bodied prisoners (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 45). The prisoners may also be targets for the prison guards. The disability of the prisoners varies greatly and there are those who can perform some of their basic duties while there are those who cannot perform any specific task for themselves. The prison guards may target the disabled prisoner by confiscating their wheelchairs, hearing aids, medication and even their crutches. The deprivation of these basic objects from the lives of the prisoners renders the prisoners helpless and cannot do anything for themselves without these objects. The case worsens is the disabled prisoner suffers from other terminal conditions. It will be very hard for such people to access the same heath care services and attention as the other normal prisoners. They need special treatment to cater for their unique needs.
The guards may also ignore some of the patients that require specialized assistance in the prison and this works to their disadvantage. The prisoners may be left without any food to eat and may even be given poor sanitary conditions because they may lack someone to provide these services to them. They may also be subjected to cases of violence due to their limited ability to defend themselves. They will face violence from both the prison guards as well as the prisoners. The prisoners in the jails may also suffer from sexual abuse and rape (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 45). Most of the disabled women in the prison face sexual abuse and rape from the wardens as well as their fellow inmates due to their feeble nature. The sexual abuse exposes them to a number of sexually transmitted diseases in the prison where the treatment of these diseases is quite limited. Some of the diseases, such as HIV/AIDS may advance and make the patients to become terminally ill. Such prisoners should receive compassionate release so that they do not continue to face the inhumane treatment that they face on a daily basis while in the prisons.
The criminal imprisonment system has gradually increased over the years and the most recent findings show that for about every one hundred people, one is imprisoned in the United States (Berry III 854). The statistic shows that about 2.3 million American are in prison. The large number of prisoners in the state make it quite hard for the government to account for and manage the population that is in the prisons. The workforce needed to ensure that the inmates remain in jail is quite large and for this reason, it becomes hectic to maintain clear and concise records for the management of the prisoners. When there are a large number of inmates, the levels of hygiene are quite low because the workforce is limited and for this reason, the outbreak of a disease would be greatly facilitated by the poor sanitation. The immune system of the old people as well as that of the disabled people is not as healthy as that of the able bodied prisoners, and for this reason, the outbreak of a disease would mean that the old prisoners will be affected quite easily and will suffer more due to their weakened immune systems. When the prison are quite flocked then the terminally ill people should be released to create more space for the other prisoners as well as making sure that the terminally ill prisoners receive the medication and treatment that they require. It will prevent such patients from contacting additional communicable diseases that may end up putting their health at risk.
Arguments against Compassionate Release for Terminally Ill Patients
The law states that the judiciary can recall a sentence that they made on a person who has terminal illness. In such cases, the Board of Parole Hearings is responsible for pleading with the courts about the importance of recalling the sentence of a prisoner with terminal illness. The illness should be such that the concerned person is likely to die in less than 6 months’ time. The law suggests that the authorities should ensure that the release of this terminally ill prisoner does not pose any danger to the society. However, it is hard to determine whether a prisoner who is to be released on compassionate release would cause any harm to the public. The assumption in this point is that a person with a terminal illness that is likely to make him or her die in the near future might not cause harm to members of the society in the last days of his or her life. However, this assumption might be misguided as the fact that a prisoner is about to die might motivate him or her to settle some old scores with people during the last days here on earth and thus cause harm to people (Specter 5). In some cases, the prisoner may strongly feel that he or she was innocent, which means that he or she may be blaming another person for the time spent in facility. The prisoner knowing that his or her fate of dying is already determined, he or she may punish the person whom he or she blames.
According to the United States Department of Justice, there are certain requirements that the prisoners who qualify for the compassionate release should possess. For instance, these prisoners should be aged from 65 years and above, should be suffering from a chronic illness or should have served more than 50% of their jail sentence. It is with such requirements that make compassionate release of prisoners risky. The fact that a prisoner has attained the age of 65 years does not automatically mean that he or she has changed his criminal ways that got him or her in prison in the first place. The release of a prisoner because of the fact that he has reached 65 years might pose danger to the society members. It is easy to assume that a prisoner who has stayed in jail for a long time might have old scores to settle with people responsible for putting him or her behind bars. The law also suggests that a person who has served for more than 50% time of their jail sentence are eligible for a compassionate release. However, it is hard to determine whether such a prisoner will have learnt his lesson while at prison and changed his or her vices or whether time in prison has made that person be bitter because of the time he or she spent behind bars. In the event that a bitter prisoner, who has served more than 50% of his or her jail-term is released on compassionate release, it is easy to conclude that the release of such a person puts the society at risk. (Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Evaluation and Inspections Division 1)
The U.S Department of Justice claims that a prisoner is who had a child being cared for is liable to get a compassionate release in the event that the person taking care of his or her child dies. For a prisoner to be considered for compassionate release, his or her child must be below the age of 18. In addition, the authorities must determine that releasing the prisoner is in the best interests of the child. However, it is easy to conclude that releasing a prisoner under this criteria poses a threat to the society. The released prisoners might not have changed his or her ways during his or her time in prison (FAMM).
Medical paroles are some of the rights that convicts who fall sick while in prison possess. The law states that a person who is incapacitated while in prison has the right to acquire a medical parole. However, giving a person who conducted a serious crime a medical parole years because of terminal illnesses after the case was concluded is not helpful as it opens healed wounds. It would be devastating for victims or families of victims affected by the actions of a person to hear that he or she is released for health reason. In such a case, the society might have bitterness due to the belief that justice has not been served (Murphy)
Conclusion
Compassionate release for terminally ill patients is a key aspect in the federal government of the United States. The terminally ill prisoners should be given compassionate release to ensure that they can access medical attention elsewhere where there are the required medical facilities to cater for the illnesses. The amount of revenue that is spent in the maintenance of the prisoners in the jail could be directed towards other development projects rather than providing the low quality medical services to the terminally ill prisoners. The terminally ill prisoners face abuse and violence from the fellow inmates and the prison guards and for this reason, the prisoners should be released to ensure that they do not face depression or death due to the violence that they cannot defend themselves from. However, the terminally ill prisoners should not pose any danger to the society and for this reason, the government should ensure that the released persons follow the law. It is common for the state to assume that the terminally ill patient will not commit the same crimes when given compassionate release. However, cases exist where the same offenders end up engaging in the same crime that they were convicted for because they feel no remorse due to their health. In such a case, the state has a big role in monitoring such patients to ensure that they do not pose additional threat to the public. Strategies should also be placed to properly screen the patients and ascertain that only reformed patients are released.
Works Cited
Anno, Jaye James E. Lawrence, Camelia Graham and Ronald Shansky (2004). Correctional Health Care: Addressing the Needs of Elderly, Chronically Ill, and Terminally Ill Inmates. U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, 2004. Print
Berry III, William. Extraordinary and Compelling: A Re-examination of the Justifications for Compassionate Release. Maryland Law Review, 68.4 (2009): 1-40
FAMM. New Compassionate Release Rules: Breaking it Down, 2016. Print
FAMM. The Answer Is No: Too Little Compassionate Release in US Federal Prisons. Human Rights Watch, 2012. Print
Murphy, Nicole. Dying to be free: An analysis of Wisconsin's restructured compassionate release statute. Marquette Law Review 95.4. (2012): 1-64. Print
Specter, Donald. Medical Parole and Compassionate Release. Prison Law Office, 2015. Print
U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Evaluation and Inspections Division. The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Compassionate Release Program April 2013, 2013. Print
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Handbook on Prisoners with Special Needs. Criminal Justice Handbook Series, 2009. Print
US Department of Justice. Compassionate Release/Reduction in Sentence: Procedures for Implementation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 3582(c)(1)(A) and 4205(g), 2015. Print
