Tag: Emre Umar

The Beginnings of the NCCHC

On August 2, 2017

The National Commission on Correctional Health Care is the main organization setting the standards to which providers of health care in correctional facilities adhere. But before the NCCHC, there was a project led by the American Medical Association to improve the level of care provided in jails and prisons. Seeing it as woefully inadequate, the AMA took the first steps to creating their Jail Program in 1971.

By 1976, they had a developed program, and began accrediting sites who met their strict standards as the first correctional health care accreditation program. By 1979, the program was in 23 states. As the AMA program grew and because it’s own independant entity, those involved realized it was time to spin it off. In 1983, the NCCHC was formed as a non-profit organization to keep the mission of the AMA Jail Program alive, which it has done up to the present day.

Prison on Tv: Oz

On September 16, 2016

In Emre Umar's Healthcare Blog

As far as prison television shows go, Oz is certainly one of the most dramatic and dark. It features sexual assault, violence, corruption, abuse of power and intensely dramatic scenes of insanity and random killings.

Shows like these can paint prison life in a much darker light than it exists in reality. It seems as though almost every episode of Oz featured a new death of a character, often in a brutal way, huge outbursts of violence, and horrid instances of sexual assault.

On Correctional Medical Care’s website, we’ve written about the prevalence of violence in prison. In short, prisons across the United States do indeed have issues with spouts of seemingly random violent attacks. There are stabbings, coordinated group attacks and gang violence, all occurring almost universally in maximum security prisons across the nation.

But shows like Oz do, still, take liberties with the truth when it comes to depicting prison on television. The levels of violence are not nearly at the level that Oz portrayed during its run. As I stated above, Oz featured regular stabbings, beatings, sexual assaults and corruption. In reality, none of these are regular occurrences.

According to a member of PrisonTalk.com who spent time in a maximum security facility, the actions seen in Oz are, for the most part, overblown.

“Oz is glamorized. It is also over the top. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the things happen in prison. Not as often as in the show. It is a lot more ‘boring’ than the show actually.”

Most of the realism from shows like Oz actually come from the positive aspects of prison–the programming and therapeutic classes that are offered to many prisoners including pet therapy, GED classes (and sometimes higher education) and even theatre groups. All of these exist inside of prisons to help inmates cope with their stay in prison.

While incarceration will more than likely not be an enjoyable experience for an inmate, watching TV shows like Oz can paint an inaccurate–and terrifying–picture of what prison life is really like. Real prisons do have violence, do have planned assaults, and do have their own problems; prison life isn’t designed to be easygoing and carefree, but depicting life as an inmate as plagued with constant random beatings and sexual assaults is a far cry from reality.

Prison on TV: Prison Break

On August 2, 2016

In Emre Umar's Healthcare Blog

It doesn’t take a particularly long time to scour the web for stories of escapes from prison. There’s the famous story of the men who (may or may not have actually) escaped from infamous Alcatraz island prison by patching together a makeshift liferaft from rain jackets. Notorious Mexican drug cartel kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped from prison not once, but twice, through both a shower tunnel and a laundry cart. And then there is, of course, the famous case of Lincoln Burrows, who escaped from Fox River State Penitentiary by tunneling his way out, avoiding execution entirely.

If you’re not overly familiar with the name Lincoln Burrows, his escape, or Fox River State Penitentiary, that may be because they’re all fictional, having been portrayed on the Fox hit “Prison Break.”

As far as prison television shows go, Prison Break is an interesting one, given that large portions of the show take place outside of a prison. Despite this, it’s still worth examining to determine how realistic the scenarios presented on the show are, from incarceration to breaking out of a prison.

The escape presented on the Fox drama wasn’t necessarily completely unrealistic–tunneling out of prison is a method that has been used in cases such as the El Chapo escape above and numerous others in similar vein. However prison escapes as a whole are fairly uncommon, and the events leading up to the escape pulled by Burrows aren’t as realistic as viewers may have assumed.

In modern times, it’s harder to break out of prison than it ever has been in the past. It doesn’t take much to understand why: as we advance as a society, so do our technologies. With the advent of closed-circuit monitoring and a better understanding of how escapes have happened in the past, prison escapes have been becoming less and less common as time goes on. According to Slate, the roughly 2,500 successful escapes from prison in 2008 are about one sixth as common as they were in 1993, even with a considerably larger prison population.

Even before the escape, though, some dubious actions take place that bring into question how realistic Prison Break is. To start, Lincoln Burrows is able to escape thanks to his brother, Michael Scofield, who is imprisoned with him. While there are no laws or stringently followed rules surrounding imprisoning siblings together, Burrows’ standing as a death-row inmate brought up on charges of killing the Vice-President may have merited isolation from anyone with whom he could conspire to escape.

Upon his arrival, Michael is able to help get his brother out of solitary confinement on death row and into the team of inmates who perform maintenance on things that include repairs–which would allow Burrows access to tools and potential alone time he could (and eventually would) use to facilitate his escape. Removing a prisoner from solitary confinement, particularly one who is facing execution, to give him rights to work around the prison is a bit of a stretch.

However, as with most prison-based television shows, there are doses of reality. The prison experience is often marred by systemic and difficult to control bouts of violence. Inconsistencies, including the frequency of conjugal visits and the bouts of inexplicable luck that the brothers on Prison Break face have been pointed out in the past (not to mention the tattoo that Michael sports, which would have cost in the realm of $20,000 and could not be done quickly). While Prison Break may not be a perfectly accurate television show about prison life, it does give an interesting look behind bars, as it was filmed in a real-life (now closed) correctional facility.

Prison on TV: Orange is the New Black

On July 19, 2016

In Emre Umar's Healthcare Blog

In October of 2013, Netflix announced that its original program “Orange is the New Black” was a “tremendous success,” and that it would conclude the year as the most watched Netflix original series ever. As of February of this year, Orange is the New Black retained its title as the most watched Netflix original to date. Surely, the high viewership numbers are due in part to the overwhelmingly positive ratings that the series has enjoyed throughout its run. But there is also a piece of the puzzle that piques our interest in a different way–many of us want to know what life is really like inside of a prison.

Orange is the New Black is, ostensibly, based on a true story. Piper Chapman, the character portrayed by Taylor Schilling on the dramedy is based off of real-life money laundering suspect Piper Kerman, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison. The Netflix series uses Kerman’s story, documented in her memoir “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison”

But how far beyond the similarities in the title and the main character’s name does Orange is the New Black really reflect what it’s like to be imprisoned?

Correctional Medical Care has written previously regarding the life of a prison inmate. Although the piece focused mainly on male prisoners, a pertinent point of the blog post pointed out one story in particular that outlined prison life as “bland and boring.” With this taken into consideration, one would assume that creators of a television series that aims to mirror real life would be forced to take certain liberties in order to craft a show that wasn’t both boring and bland.

That’s why what you’ll see on a show like Orange is the New Black is a mix of fairly accurate happenings with some that are as off-the-wall as you may expect from a comedy show.

Some of what the show gets wrong is fairly obvious, even to someone who has never been in a prison. Piper, the main character, ultimately finds herself sharing a prison with Alex, the same girl that testified against her in court, ultimately leading to her being imprisoned. This would create obvious conflict between the two, and except in very, very exceptional circumstances, would be avoided in real prison.

One fact that the television show points out, but perhaps touches on less than a real life prison situation would, is the racial divide. In an interview with NPR, Kerman claimed that the racial barriers within the prison were very real, at the very least until prisoners had been incarcerated for an extended period.

Another unfortunate aspect of women’s prisons are the abuse and neglect that they suffer, something that isn’t as directly dealt with in the show. The Guardian has reported various human-rights violations, including withholding menstrual pads and systematic physical, verbal and emotional abuse wrought throughout prisons. While these are obviously not universal truths–and I would very much hope they’d be as few and far between as possible–abuse in women’s prisons is far too common to be ignored or glossed over. If you’re looking for a picture of some of what a women’s prison is like, consider reading the Cracked article written by someone whose situation closely mirrors that of Kerman (or Chapman).

Television shows, simply put, cannot always mirror real life scenarios. For various reasons, the same can be said even more firmly about shows like Orange is the New Black. While the hit Netflix dramedy does key in on some aspects of prison life accurately, the obvious liberties taken (for good reason) do tend to shy away from real prison life.