A lack of oversight and standards for pregnancy care in jails is becoming more problematic as the number of incarcerated women rises and abortion restrictions put medical care further out of reach.
Advocates for pregnant people in police custody say repeated incidents show prohibitions on handcuffs and other restraints are little more than lip service.
Rural gun homicides have often been overshadowed by violence in cities. But they are taking their toll on small communities ill-equipped to deal with the challenges.
The day-to-day struggles that parents of kids with mental health conditions must navigate have led to their own crisis: The stress can take a physical toll that disrupts parents’ ability to provide care, say psychologists, researchers, and advocates for families.
Efforts to improve addiction care in jails and prisons are underway across the country. But a rural Alabama county with one of the nation’s highest overdose rates shows how change is slow, while law enforcement officials continue to treat addiction as a crime rather than a medical condition.
Nearly 30 states have active or proposed laws authorizing independent hospital police forces. Groups representing nurses and hospitals say the laws address the daily realities of patients who become aggressive or agitated. But critics worry about unintended consequences.
Doctors rushed a pregnant woman to a surgeon who charged thousands upfront just to see her. The case reveals a gap in medical billing protections for those with rare, specialized conditions.
Pharmaceutical companies have put the brakes on many states’ ability to execute prisoners using lethal injections. Lacking alternatives, states are trying to keep the public from learning details about how they carry out executions.
More than 600,000 people are released from prisons every year, many with costly health conditions but no medications, medical records, a health care provider, or insurance.
Covid remains a threat for the roughly 30,000 people in the country’s network of immigration facilities. But ICE continues to flout its own pandemic protocols, an extension of the facilities’ poor history of medical care.