How prison hospice can and should change your world view

[Music]

[Music]

when i first met

jean he was pushing a broom down the

corridor

sweeping up after lunch and humming the

theme from the bridge over the river

kwai

[Music]

um

his head full of gray hair bob from side

to side is he hummed

he was probably in his late 60s maybe

early 70s

but he still had a little pep in his

step

as he got closer to me he said the

little speech that all men in the

institution gave when they first met you

good morning ma’am i’m inmate 3472

and i’m doing a life sentence for murder

the next time i saw gene he wasn’t

pushing a broom

but he was being pushed in a wheelchair

by another inmate

his head that was once full of gray hair

now

didn’t have quite so much on it and he

could barely keep his head

straight as it bobbed front to back

on his now pencil thin neck

as they approached me he said good

morning ma’am

i’m inmate three four

he coughed and he choked a little bit

and the other inmate said he’s inmate

3472

and he’s doing a life sentence for

murder

the last time i saw gene he had no gray

hair left and he couldn’t even hold his

head up

it just hung there

as a small trail of drool drift from his

lips

when he would grunt

gene died a few weeks after that he was

actually

only 62 when he died

how many of you often think about

getting old

if and when you do you probably think

about those around you

who love you who will take care of you

but how many of you have often thought

about getting old

in prison or getting sick in prison

or dying in prison

who takes care of them in 2017

there were nearly 200 000 individuals

considered elderly in prisons

by the year 2030 estimates indicate

that we will see a rise of almost 4

400 percent

what this means is we’re seeing

lots of older oh wait a minute

i forgot to tell you the body tends to

physiologically age 10 to 15 years

faster than the non-incarcerated

population

what this means is we are seeing

people in their 40s and 50s with

diseases of old age like dementia

alzheimer’s disease parkinson’s disease

the bottom line is that we as a society

are seeing an enormous amount of

individuals

who are getting sick and it is the

taxpayer

who is responsible for them

ruby was 58 and suffering

from rheumatoid arthritis

her hands were so gnarled she couldn’t

pick up an eating utensil

she could only eat at dinner times

like a dog pushing her food around her

plate

with her tongue and her paws

with only 30 minutes to eat she rarely

got enough food

and by the age of 59 she was so

malnourished

that she had a massive stroke

but why was ruby in prison anyway i mean

she must have done something

horrible to be in prison for life

well ruby was in prison for something

that if she did it nowadays she might

not even see the inside

of a city jail cell but it was 1937

and ruby had shot her husband after

he had beaten her and their child

so severely that responding law

enforcement

couldn’t tell the gender of the swollen

bloody child

when the guards found ruby the next

morning she was lying in her cell

alone her prison uniform was

soaked in urine and feces

and she had died there by herself

looking up at a picture

of her now adult daughter

in the 1970 supreme court estelle versus

gamble

the high court determined that the

deprivation of health care to inmates

constitutes cruel and unusual punishment

in 2017 the united nations commission

on criminal justice gave us what we now

call the mandela rules

these rules mandate the minimum amounts

of care that we give

to people within our prison system

so if we can’t ignore the problem

and we’re mandated to a certain level

of care what can we do with them

in the united states and abroad whereby

prisons

are putting in hospice programs

to care for the aging and dying behind

bars

inmates are provided with palliative

care not curative care

and they are taught to care for each

other

and most importantly no one dies alone

within prisons we find

that healthy prisoners will cost the u.s

taxpayer about sixty thousand dollars

per inmate per year

but these individuals are not healthy

by any stretch of the imagination

and these sick inmates can cost us

more like 160 000

per inmate per year

for health care alone

what my research found is that these

hospice units inside prisons

can shave off sometimes nearly one-third

of the prison healthcare budget

but there was something else more

interestingly enough

these prison hospice programs change the

culture of the prison

we see a lower inmate on inmate violence

lower statistics on employee turnover

and overall safer prisons

but why well the research has shown

that the number one fear of inmates

going into prison

is not to be beaten or shanked

or even raped but the number one

fear the inmates have going into the

prison system

is the stigma of dying alone

in prison when we

teach prisoners to care for each other

we take away that fear and we

alleviate one of the biggest stressors

in inmate life

shame and fear are pervasive inside

prisons

and by taking away that fear

prisoners are profoundly

changed the hands

that once hurt other people are now used

to help to heal

and to care so

why is prison hospice an idea worth

spreading

because my friends compassion

is worth spreading i’ve

taught 50 year old men

the difference between good touch

and bad touch

and then watch them fall apart

when they admit to me they’d never

even experienced the feeling

of a simple hug

hospice teaches them and reminds us

that death doesn’t care about our

station in life

how much we have in our bank account or

how many friends we have

hospice reminds us all that we all

breathe

the same air whether inside

or outside of a prison cell

i’d like to end today with a quote by

one of the most

famous prisoners in the world

nelson mandela said one

should not judge a nation until you’ve

been inside their prisons and jails

one cannot judge a nation

by how it treats its highest citizens

but its lowest ones

thank you

[Music]

you