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Family Life Behind Bars has been working very slowly on a project that looks at the healthcare that is provided to inmates and the role families play in caring for someone in prison. The site had a great personal audio piece about one daughter’s attempts to care for her sick father in prison. We’ll keep plugging away at this angle.

In the meantime, the New York Times has an interesting piece about how more prisons are starting hospice programs as the prison population ages with many of them using inmate volunteers to ease the pain of dying in prison. Without family to help deal with the illness, the last days or months of life can be difficult. Fellow inmates can help deal that remaining time.

One prison healthcare official says that “inmate volunteers bond with the patients in a way that staff members cannot, taking on “the touchy-feely thing” that may be inappropriate between inmates and prison workers.”

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: How do you try to care for a family member who is in prison and ill?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

For Illustrative Purposes Only

Former prison inmates are more likely than those who have never been incarcerated to have high blood pressure as young adults and to develop a dangerous thickening of the heart’s left ventricle, according to an article in the New York Times.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: What health issues have affected your family after a loved one was released from prison? How have you handled the health problems?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]

A prisoner is treaded in the new Triage and Treatment Area at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California.

The following article about inmates dying from poorly treated medical conditions appeared in the Mississippi Clarion Ledger:

State prisoners in Mississippi are sick and dying at one of the highest rates in the nation.

Mississippi is second only to Tennessee in per-capita deaths among inmates, based on the latest national data. Five years earlier, the state ranked 23rd and was at the national average.

Mississippi’s inmate mortality rate was second in the nation in 2006, the most recent year for which national data are available. And according to a review of state-level reports, Mississippi’s mortality rate rose in 2007.

It’s a situation that is raising legal concerns with lawmakers and moral questions with prison-reform advocates.

Mississippi Department of Corrections officials say the high rate of in-custody deaths is the result of a number of factors: aging prisoners, drug and alcohol abuse prior to incarceration and the generally unhealthy lifestyles of Mississippians.

Emani Davis, a columnist at Family Life Behind Bars, just provided her perspective on this topic after visiting her own sick father in prison.

In this audio column, Emani Davis, the director of Project Family Connect and the daughter of an incarcerated man, talks about her father’s declining health and the threat of losing him after 24 years spent waiting for his release.

If you are someone who has a family member who is incarcerated and you have a question for me, you have three options:

1. Post a question in the comments section below,
2. Send an email to questions@livesinfocus.org,
3. Call (646) 867-1891 to leave a message.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: Should elderly and sick prisoners be released from prison to spend their remaining years with their families?

Do you have a sick relative in prison? How are you trying to help them?

[Use the comments feature below or call (646) 867-1891 to leave an audio message.]