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.