The Health of Prisoners

Ed Richard Creese, W F Bynum, J Bearn Rodopi, Amsterdam, pp 184 ISBN 90 5183 817 4

Judged dispassionately, prisons don't work. The more we punish, the more we are plagued by crime. But prisons are not alone in their futility: our hospitals partake of it as well. The more patients we treat, the more illness there is. In fact, all human institutions are mere holding operations against chaos and dissolution. The position of doctors who work in prison is highly ambiguous, and always has been. Are prison doctors agents …