Prison Health News

25/02/2026

https://www.digitaljournal.com/life/prison-medication-error-rates-3x-higher-than-community-settings/article

The benchmarking for medication incidents rate is not regarded as a recognized key performance measure or indicator in national or international organizations - especially in jails.

18/02/2026

From PHN Advisory Board member Kwaneta Harris:

"Why is an incarcerated woman with her own trauma and a life sentence being forced to perform crisis intervention without training, without support, without even basic compensation? The question reveals our willingness to exploit the vulnerable while calling it peer support.

But there is a bigger question that no one in authority seems willing to address: Why are we putting people in solitary confinement when decades of research confirm that isolation causes the very suicidal ideation we then scramble to prevent? We create the crisis, then deputize the traumatized to manage it. We know that solitary confinement destroys mental health, yet we continue to use it. We know that putting already-traumatized women on su***de watch causes secondary trauma, yet we continue to require it. The cruelty is not incidental. It is structural."

Why is an incarcerated woman with her own trauma and a life sentence being forced to perform crisis intervention without training, support, or compensation?

12/02/2026

"In September, six people detained at the facility shared accounts with the Guardian of poor conditions and alleged mistreatment by staff. They claimed that staff were not consistently giving people daily medications, and some detainees fell unconscious due to health issues; small food portions left people hungry, with some saying they rationed meals.

“This place is built to break us,” Sokhean Keo, a California City detainee who is facing deportation to Cambodia, said in an interview.

The seven people who filed the lawsuit include Yuri Alexander Roque Campos, who says he was denied medications “for days at a time” for a heart anomaly requiring daily monitoring and medication; Fernando Viera Reyes, who said he was denied access to a physician for treatment of his prostate cancer; and Fernando Gomez Ruiz, who said he had not received regular insulin for his diabetes while detained."

Order comes after seven people in California City facility allege they were denied medications, food and sanitation

10/02/2026

From PHN Advisory Board member Kwaneta Harris in Ms. Magazine:
"Real solidarity means action. It means demanding air conditioning in these ovens they call prisons. It means advocating for policy changes that require proper menopause-informed care in all prisons. It means demanding we can’t be forced to work unpaid in triple-digit heat picking cotton and other crops during this transition. It means demanding that prisons stock adequate menstrual and menopausal products and that they’re freely accessible without having to beg."

Speaking from a Texas prison, journalist Kwaneta Harris reveals how menopause is neglected and punished for women in jail.

09/02/2026

https://truthout.org/articles/safe-drinking-water-is-a-basic-human-right-that-texas-prisons-fail-to-respect/

Imprisoned people are forced to drink and bathe with water they describe as over-chlorinated, slimy, and foul-smelling.

26/01/2026

Update: We're calling the warden now!

Colleen Harper in the mail room heard our calls but refuses to budge. So we're escalating!

Please visit prisonhealth.news/call-missouri for updated instructions.

Thank you so much for your solidarity! We love you! 😍

12/01/2026

STARTING TODAY! We're asking friends and supporters to call South Central prison in Missouri to demand that they accept free print publications ordered by people in prison. We have won against prison censorship in other states and other prisons in Missouri, but South Central refuses to allow Prison Health News! Please call and follow the instructions here:

January 2026 Call-in to South Central prison in Missouri Demand: We are asking Colleen Harper and all mail room staff to accept free print magazines ordered by people in prison and not send them ba…

08/01/2026

Please help us call South Central prison in Missouri to demand they accept free print magazines! We're asking everyone who cares about access to reading material in prison to like and share this post, make the call Monday or later next week, and comment on our Instagram post (click on the image below) to let us know what happened.

More info: https://prisonhealth.news/call-missouri/

Thank you for your solidarity!

18/12/2025

We know it's the guards bringing drugs in. Here's some more evidence:

ST. GABRIEL - In the wake of what the Department of Corrections is calling an uptick

25/11/2025

Check out our new issue of the magazine, at the printer now! With a book excerpt about revolutionary jailhouse lawyer Martin Sostre, an investigation of what help is still available for sexual assault survivors in prison now that the PREA resource center has been defunded by Trump, why the risk of toxic shock syndrome is higher behind bars, and more!

View the full magazine online athttps://prisonhealth.news/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/fallwinter-2025_issue-62_final-version.pdf

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