5000 Inmates die each year

[hk blues]

On 10/10/2019 at 8:01 AM, Tommy T. said:

That's an interesting and sad story ultimately. The rate for "beds" is higher than some decent hotels.

.

With all due respect, Tom, I hear this often.  The hotel rate doesn't include 24/7 security. all meals, etc etc etc.  If it was that simple, governments would be renting hotel rooms rather than building prisons.  

[Tommy T.]

Yeah, HK , I know that, and you are quite right. I was being a bit sarcastic - a bad trait of mine... I just have a problem relating crime verses punishment. (That is a great novel, by the way, but challenging to read cover to cover, "Crime and Punishment").

I don't have the solution, but I keep thinking that, if someone commits the crime and "does the time" maybe it should be a bit less than a room with TV and exercise area, 3 meals/day? Maybe there should be something a bit more punitive. I also am aware that simply being incarcerated is a real punishment too... I don't have the solution, just questions, I guess...

Edited October 11, 2019 by Tommy T.

[GeoffH]

I'm not in favor of prisons being run like holiday camps but it shouldn't be a death sentence to be in one either (unless you've actually been sentenced to death ie).

Edited October 11, 2019 by GeoffH

[hk blues]

2 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

 I also am aware that simply being incarcerated is a real punishment too... 

I think that is the intended purpose of imprisonment/incarceration - loss of liberty.  The idea of rehabilitation is noble but seems to have got lost in the reality of the system.    

[Heeb]

The husband of my wife's niece has been in prison for a few months now for selling shabu, she says they sleep side by side on the floor and his body is now covered with a rash and he gets no sleep, I'm pretty sure he will die in there but he must have known what he was getting into. They have 9 kids and I remember my wife telling him years ago after about the 5th one to get his tubes tied, he said "it was god's will that he have as many babies as possible" We have sent them money over the years for food and paid for all of his children's schooling and put one through college. We just arrived in the Philippines last Tuesday and all the children that I remember from last time I was here are grown and have children, this place is one big baby factory.

[earthdome]

On 10/5/2019 at 8:09 PM, Mike J said:

This is why you don't want to go to prison in the Philippines. 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/philippines-inmate-deaths-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

(CNN)One in five detainees at the Philippines' national penitentiary die every year, officials at the prison hospital have revealed.

About 5,200 inmates at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) die annually due to overcrowding, disease and violence, according to hospital medical chief Ernesto Tamayo, CNN affiliate CNN Philippines reported.
Tamayo, speaking at a Senate hearing on Thursday, said the overcrowding had led to unmanageable outbreaks of pulmonary tuberculosis, CNN Philippines said.
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The NBP, located in Muntinlupa City outside the capital Manila, has been embroiled in scandals for months. Thursday's Senate hearing was just the latest development in an ongoing investigation into allegations of corruption at the Bureau of Corrections.
Public outrage began in August, when rumors spread that a former mayor currently serving time for a 1993 rape and homicide would be released early for good behavior.
Then in September, a witness claimed that prison officials had offered to shorten her husband's sentence for a fee of 50,000 Philippine pesos (about $970) -- a deal that ultimately fell through, even after she said she paid.

More allegation arose in September, when senators claimed that inmates could "live like kings" in their cells for a certain fee, CNN Philippines reported. It alleged prison officials accepted bribes to smuggle in contraband like cell phones, cigarettes and even televisions.
During Thursday's hearing, senators also raised allegations that inmates were faking illnesses to stay in hospitals outside the prison. According to testimonials from former inmates, some NBP inmates even have personal cooks and nurses inside the prison hospital, according to CNN Philippines.
The high number of deaths is shocking -- but not exactly a new problem. Other prisons around the country are facing similar problems; when CNN visited a Quezon City jail in 2016, more than 4,000 inmates were living cheek by jowl in one of the most densely populated corners of the Philippines.

Conditions were terrible, with the inmates crammed together into crumbling, ramshackle cells. There's barely space for them to sleep -- one room held 85 inmates in a 200-square foot space. Another one, bigger but not by much, held 131. It was designed for 30.
Critics say this overcrowding is a predictable effect of Duterte's war on drugs -- a bloody and brutal crackdown on the methamphetamine trade that has seen thousands killed by police and vigilantes.
The war on drugs has also sparked international condemnation. In July, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to investigate the thousands of crackdown-related killings -- a move that the country's foreign minister quickly denounced as unjust.
All the while, inmate numbers are climbing. At the start of 2016, the Quezon City jail had a little under 3,600 inmates. In the seven weeks after Duterte took office in June, that number rose to 4,053.
The World Prison Brief reported that the Philippines' total jail population (including pre-trial detainees and remand prisoners) was 188,278 in May 2018.

My wife told me a few weeks ago that her brother, who has been in the PNP for almost 5 years, has been reassigned to the  Bilibid prison as part of a large group of PNP to replace the corrupt corrections staff. I haven't heard anything else regarding his new assignment.

[Arizona Kid]

18 hours ago, earthdome said:

My wife told me a few weeks ago that her brother, who has been in the PNP for almost 5 years, has been reassigned to the  Bilibid prison as part of a large group of PNP to replace the corrupt corrections staff. I haven't heard anything else regarding his new assignment.

When the jailers are more corrupt than the ones they are supposed to be guarding, it might be a hint that something in the system is not working!