Against Prisons: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

In poor countries, the typical situation faced by a prisoner is that of unfairness. Prisoners there feel they do not get what they deserve. When it comes to prison conditions, they feel they are the victims of an unbearable and unbridgeable gap between the law-in-the-books and the law-in-action. As a prisoner in a poor country, you will have a high likelihood of suffering from infectious diseases, from the lack of hygiene, from inadequate medical and psychological assistance, from unhealthy diets, and - most importantly - from lack of respect by undertrained and often incompetent, but bossy guards and semi-professionals. This is highly likely to happen in poor countries and in very poor countries, but, if that is a consolation, it would be very unlikely that you could escape such a fate completely even in a rich country's prison system. Because it's in the system.

Still, one should not deny the special seriousness of the situation in poor countries. As the International Committee of the Red Cross noted (ICRC 2013: 24): 

 

:"Most governments struggle to give priority to the construction and rehabilitation of prisons and this lack of priority is reflected in the buildings and their location. Prisons with underground detention areas, accommodation areas with no natural light during daytime hours and those where the continuous use of artificial light does not allow a natural distinction to be made between night and day continue to be built. Buildings decay more rapidly than is necessary because routine maintenance is not carried out and this has an effect on prisoners and staff. - Financial cost is a critical factor in all countries. In countries which are resource-poor and have little funding  available  for public services, limited  resources are generally allocated to the building, operation and  maintenance of prison facilities. A costly backlog of repairs builds up because continuous attention cannot be given to regular and preventive infrastructure maintenance. This can overwhelm government funding. Continuous attention to regular and preventive infrastructure  maintenance is vital, however, and less expensive in the long term. Existing  prisons are often hurriedly modified  and  extended,  with inferior materials being used and the new structures failing to comply with recognized good practice, particularly in post-conflict environments. All too frequently, the fuel available for cooking is not that for which the kitchen (...) It is not uncommon to find smoke-filled, enclosed kitchens that were originally designed for  some other fuel that is no longer available and is now replaced by – often wet – wood."

Because of overcrowding, unsafe water supplies, bad food, lack of medical assistance and hygiene (for women's prisons cf. Bozelko 2015), prisoners around the world and people who were formerly incarcerated have a higher burden of HIV, TB, MDR-TB and other infectious diseases than the general population. And from prison these infections are spreading into the general population, thereby worsening the general health situation of whole countries, if not continents (Beachum 2016). If the United Nations' attempt to reach its much-publicized millenium goals pertaining to the containment of infectious diseases by 2015 failed not least because of the world's prison systems' contribution to the quanitative and qualitative complication of global health.