What are the Conditions in US Prisons?
Occasionally, particularly disgusting episodes of prisoner abuse will emerge into the headlines of newspapers, then quickly be forgotten. Most recently, several hundred prisoners in New Orleans Parish Prison, one of the most notoriously hideous prisons in the US, were left to drown as the floods of Hurricane Katrina swallowed the city. But in general, little media attention is given to the deplorable conditions in US prisons. Conditions at jails and prisons in the US vary widely. Overall, though, with the massive number of inmates flooding the prison system, it is simply impossibly to build prisons fast enough to house all prisoners. Overcrowding has become a major problem, which leads to unsanitary and inhuman conditions. Unsanitary food and inadequate health services for prisoners are the norm. Discipline in prisons is usually harsh and often arbitrary or influenced by personal relationships between guards and inmates. Common methods including beatings, use of dogs, solitary confinem
