Prison Health News

23/11/2025

"It’s well understood that contact between incarcerated people and their families is essential for the well-being of people in prison, their children, and their communities. Letters in particular have been found to have important mental health benefits, especially for those in crisis. Stripping access to physical mail further imperils thousands of people incarcerated in Illinois, in no small part because the state prison system has repeatedly failed to fix its broken mental health care services."

Proposed rule change would make devastating mail restrictions permanent for thousands in Illinois’ prisons

17/11/2025

10/11/2025

"Serious injuries went untreated, medications were denied or scaled back, and needed medical appointments were delayed at the ICE detention center, the state’s largest, located near Buffalo.

In one case, a Nigerian migrant arrived in February at the Batavia ICE detention facility suffering frostbite. A doctor who provided emergency care ordered that he see a specialist within a week before releasing him into ICE’s custody. Agents in Batavia never took him to the appointment. By the time he saw a doctor, it was too late to save his fingers; parts of six were later amputated."

“It's just freak luck that no one has died in Batavia in the last two years," one advocate said of medical treatment in the ICE prison.

06/11/2025

“People who are incarcerated have been, in a sense, the canary in the coal mine for authoritarianism,” they said. “If we’re not in solidarity with incarcerated people already, this is the time to get connected and learn from that.”

Morse then established that their intention is to create safe LGBTQ+ spaces within the carceral system. While others have suggested creating exclusively LGBTQ+ prison units, Morse does not believe in creating more jails. They then emphasized the importance of addressing issues that might lead to incarceration, like being kicked out of housing or dealing with substance abuse."

On Wednesday, Oct. 8 the Critical Diaspora Studies undergraduate working group hosted a panel discussion on transgender justice in the carceral system. The event featured Dr. Nicole Morse and Dr. Vesla Weaver, who joined the panel in person, and Arianna Lint, who joined virtually, moderated by Haile...

31/10/2025

"Our last conversation took place over the phone, three months before he died. ... Below is a transcript of our last conversation, lightly edited for clarity and chronology. Marcus died before he could review the final draft."

Months before his death, Ralph Marcus explained how a COVID-era leg injury led to a rare bone cancer that didn’t have to be fatal.

31/10/2025

"Covid is spreading, but incarcerated people are being told vaccines aren’t necessary."

Covid is spreading, but incarcerated people are being told vaccines aren’t necessary.

29/10/2025

"Almost 60% of people in prisons and 25% of those in local jails are confined in rural counties, which are home to 3,000 of the nation’s correctional facilities. Following massive cuts to Medicaid passed by Congress this year, many rural hospitals will be forced to scale back operations or close entirely. As a result, critical, lifesaving healthcare will be further out of reach for huge swaths of the incarcerated population and those who live and work nearby, making an already bad situation far, far worse."

The Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will result in the closure of many rural hospitals, leaving people in the surrounding communities — including ...

10/10/2025

"Healing Futures is Philadelphia’s first pre-charge restorative justice diversion program for youth, led by YASP and created in partnership with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Instead of pushing young people deeper into the system, Healing Futures brings them and those they’ve harmed into a community-led process focused on accountability, repair, and healing. And the results speak volumes:

✨ 100% of participants, both youth who caused harm and those who were harmed, report satisfaction with the process and say they would recommend it to others.
✨ In over two years, only 1 out of 30 young people who completed the program was adjudicated for a new offense. That’s a recidivism rate of just 3%."

In early 2023, YASP was honored to receive the Stoneleigh Foundation Emerging Leaders Fellowship to support our Healing Futures Restorative Justice Diversion Program. This report highlights the first two years of Healing Futures, sharing key data and insights about its impact on Philadelphia’s you...

06/10/2025

"In the throes of the Covid pandemic, I used a contraband cellphone as a last-ditch effort to report Texas prison officials’ alarmingly inadequate response to the virus, which was causing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of incarcerated individuals and staff members.

That video footage was incorporated into a local ABC News documentary called “No Way Out.” That reporting embarrassed prison officials so badly it compelled them to implement and follow the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those changes could not have happened without contraband cellphones."

Brendan Carr is advancing a plan to choke communications for people who use cellphones to expose abuses in prison.

24/08/2025

“My sister, Honesty, was a fighter who never gave up,” Latasha Monroe, Bishop’s sister and personal representative for the Estate of Honesty Jade Bishop, said in a statement by Lambda Legal, the MacArthur Justice Center and law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, which filed the case on Bishop’s behalf.

Monroe added that her sister “endured years of cruel treatment because of her HIV status, but she never stopped believing that things could change. This settlement honors her memory and ensures that others won’t have to suffer what Honesty went through. Her courage in speaking out has created lasting changes.”

Honesty Bishop, a transgender woman with HIV, spent six years in solitary confinement after she was allegedly attacked by a cellmate.

10/08/2025

The Summer 2025 issue of Prison Health News is now online here:
https://prisonhealth.news/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/summer-2025_issue-61_draft-2.pdf

31/07/2025

"People incarcerated in BOP facilities are already feeling the effects, including through the increased use of lockdowns, during which entire units are confined to cells for hours or days on end. In recent weeks, many federal prisons have implemented new policies, such as full-day lockdowns once a week, or nightly lockdowns starting at 6, according to reports sent by incarcerated people to the advocacy group More Than Our Crimes. These incarcerated writers often report that staff blame the new lockdowns on insufficient staffing or overtime bans.

“We just came off of a two-week lockdown, supposedly to save on overtime costs,” an incarcerated person wrote in May from FCI Waseca, a low-security women’s facility in Minnesota. “Now we are being [told] we will be locked down one week each month. … No work crews will run, there will be no programming, and if rec [is] open it will only be in the p.m.”

The Trump administration has thrown the lives of incarcerated people into chaos.