89 Market Street, 6th Floor | Newark, NJ 07102 | 973-643-1924 “FROM THE INSIDE OUT” A report by the Prison Watch Community Oversight Initiative Issue 3 - June 2017 This is a community effort created by the voices inside. With Program Director Bonnie Kerness (973-410-3978/
[email protected]), Marshall (Justice) Rountree, Jean Ross, Esq, and Lydia Thornton. Dear Friends: “We would like to thank the Rev. Charles Boyer for the concept of an issue focusing on health care issues, both mental and physical, in New Jersey prisons. As Piper Kerman in her book “Orange is the New Black” noted on her first day in prison, “the most dangerous thing you could do in prison was get sick”. We have made the decision to focus this entire issue on the health care needs of our sisters and brothers inside the walls, based on that suggestion, and because we get so many letters weekly from people asking for our assistance in getting their basic (emergent and chronic) physical and mental health needs met within our prisons and other institutions. Both national and international norms address health related rights and protections. 1. The United Nations Convention against Torture (CAT) forbids any punishment intentionally designed to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering. 2. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) Article 12 (1) The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. According to the ACLU: "Each day, men, women, and children behind bars suffer needlessly from lack of access to adequate medical and mental health care.