During my internship with Campaign Zero, I was able to research how inmates' healthcare was paid for and the execution of the care that inmates receive. There are many flaws in the prison healthcare system because of the quality of providers that are available, the length of time it takes to be seen, and the cost of care while in prison.

For my independent project, I researched how prisons across the country paid and administered healthcare for inmates. This research includes best practices and how states can improve their healthcare access and delivery to provide, at minimum, adequate care to inmates, most of whom are currently receiving poor care. Healthcare in prisons is filled with neglect and inadequate staff due to lack of funding, the nationwide shortage of healthcare workers, especially nurses, and the people who are hired to work in the prison healthcare setting. For instance, in some states, doctors who have their medical license revoked for selling drugs under the table or other healthcare violations can still practice in prisons.

My project connects to public health because incarcerated people are a part of our overall population (even though they are often not viewed or treated as such). They are stripped of the power to access fair healthcare or advocate for themselves in the public arena of prisons. They are not receiving the same level of care as they might outside of the public institution of prison.

One of the most challenging parts of providing adequate healthcare to inmates is the fact that very few people sign up to go through medical/nursing school with the aspiration of working in the prison system for the rest of their careers. Reasons for this may include the pay, the daily work environment, the type of medical issues they will address, and the patients they will be seeing, prisoners. Another issue with providing adequate health care is that the providers can practice in a prison without full certification because of issues that the doctor has had in the past. Not only is the quality of providers in prison lacking, but there is an overall lack of healthcare providers in many prisons causing long wait times in the prison healthcare system. This can lead to poor patient care due to neglect of patients like Kenneth Johnson, “the victim of an untreated and misdiagnosed tumor that obstructed his airway until he could no longer breathe” (SevenDaysVT). On Johnson’s final night alive he complained about struggling to breathe and instead of him receiving treatment from the nurses treating him he was threatened with solitary confinement. This is just one case I came across while researching the poor medical treatment of inmates.

Medical co-pays that are charged to prisoners make healthcare proportionally more costly when compared to healthcare costs for the general population. For example in New Hampshire, it costs $3 per visit to see a doctor or healthcare provider, and when inmates only earn 25 cents per hour that are a large percentage of their monthly earnings for an inmate (Prison Policy). This inequitable system leads to inmates not going in and seeking service unless absolutely necessary which leads to worse health outcomes.

During the internship, my day-to-day work involved being part of a team researching the practices and costs of the prison healthcare systems on a state-by-state basis across America. This allowed my partners and I to come up with policy solutions to improve healthcare for inmates, such as eliminating medical co-pays, to allow all inmates to access equitable healthcare.

My internship was fully remote due to the covid-19 pandemic meaning I was unable to work in direct contact with my bosses and leaders. Instead, we communicated and collaborated via Zoom, phone calls, and inputting and communicating through databases. My day-to-day work was focused on 2-3 states and included researching prison systems by talking to members of state congresses, researching and actively looking up the most currently published state department of correction documents relating to prison health care, searching for and analyzing scholarly and in-the-news articles and reading state legislation to be able to come up with recommendations on how to change them.

On the first day of my internship, all of the research analysts were gathered on a large zoom call and the founder of Campaign Zero mentioned the companies why “To End Police Violence” and to keep that in mind while we work. I had heard this mentioned before but never really put it into practice, but this internship challenged me in new ways. These challenges made it hard to focus on what I was doing and forced me to go back and consider what the founder had mentioned. This simple change in mindset helped me not only eliminate unnecessary stress but work more efficiently as well. Finding “My Why” is something that I will take with me to every project I work on.

• Heintz, P. (2022, March 29). Criminal neglect? the death of a black inmate at a Vermont prison. Seven Days. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/criminal-neglect-the-death-of-a-black-inmate-at-a-vermont-prison/Content?oid=30889943

• Initiative, P. P. (n.d.). The steep cost of medical co-pays in prison puts health at risk. Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/19/copays/

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