This guy must have been incredibly desperate to try something so foolish. It's sad that he thought there were only two choices: dying of treatable conditions or go to prison. Of course, this event probably caused most Americans to think that "prisoners have it too good.", instead of "Man, our healthcare system sucks."
I hear talk about "secret deals", corruption, and so forth. That's a legitimate concern.
But what about the completely public corruption?
The private prison industry, well... it exists. That's bad enough. It exists, it's corporate-controlled, and it's profitable. If you think that the "military-industrial complex" is bad (not to say it isn't), consider the fact that we occasionally find it reasonable, apparently, to outsource such a part of our justice system to corporate interests. These corporations have every interest in (of course) maximizing profit, without any concern for social well-being or rehabilitation. Consider this: A company who owns prison has every incentive to promote recidivism and bad behavior rather than curtail it, and they're known to lobby for stricter sentencing and harsher "tough on crime" legislation, for fairly obvious reasons. The fact that we allow corporate interests to literally own and run our prisoners with shoddy oversight is despicable even on its face for the reasons mentioned, and is even worse when you consider the allegations of poorly-run facilities and the fact that the government/public doesn't even necessarily save money by doing it.
Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant or don't care about their prison system. A few people who posted in this thread are proof of that.
"Prison is a free ride" "3 meals a day, roof over their head, and human rights"
Yeah. A high chance of getting raped, getting barely enough food to sustain yourself, living in a poorly built facility, constant abuse, and having absolutely no freedom. Too good compared to what? Death?
What most Americans
really want is for prisoners to just... disappear. Doesn't matter what their crime was, just that they broke the law. And, apparently, breaking the law automatically makes you subhuman scum.
It's not entirely the corporations' fault. They just gave the public what they wanted. The high recidivism rate is just proof to most people that all prisoners are evil. When in reality it's because rehabilitation was never a real goal.
Here's a link for people who want to learn more about the U.S. prison system:
http://lf.dont-read.com/?p=51