{"id":46581,"date":"2022-02-15T18:16:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T23:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/medical-and-mental-health-care"},"modified":"2025-06-17T16:46:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T20:46:34","slug":"medical-and-mental-health-care","status":"publish","type":"issue","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care","title":{"rendered":"Medical and Mental Health Care"},"parent":46637,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-46581","issue","type-issue","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"featured-image":210816,"intro":"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.","what-you-need-to-know":null,"promo":{"description":"","button":"","url":""},"faq":{"description":"","faq-items":null},"featured-stories":null,"latest-stories":null,"whats-at-stake":{"title":"What's at Stake","description":"Each day, men, women, and children behind bars suffer needlessly from lack of access to adequate medical and mental health care. Chronic illnesses go untreated, emergencies are ignored, and patients with serious mental illness fail to receive necessary care. For some patients, poor medical care turns a minor sentence into a death sentence.\r\n\r\nThe failure to provide prisoners with access to needed health care too often results in tragedy. It also violates the U.S. Constitution. Nearly forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in <em>Estelle v. Gamble <\/em>that ignoring a prisoner\u2019s serious medical needs can amount to cruel and unusual punishment, noting that \u201c[a]n inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met. In the worst cases, such a failure may actually produce physical torture or a lingering death[.] \u2026 In less serious cases, denial of medical care may result in pain and suffering which no one suggests would serve any penological purpose.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe overwhelming majority of people behind bars will someday be released. Providing prisoners with care today means having healthier neighbors and communities tomorrow."},"actions":"","drupal-id":97,"is_hidden_issue":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>American Civil Liberties Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Medical and Mental Health Care | American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-17T20:46:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care\",\"name\":\"Medical and Mental Health Care | American Civil Liberties Union\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-15T23:16:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-17T20:46:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"American Civil Liberties Union\",\"description\":\"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. Our mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"American Civil Liberties Union","description":"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Medical and Mental Health Care | American Civil Liberties Union","og_description":"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care","og_site_name":"American Civil Liberties Union","article_modified_time":"2025-06-17T20:46:34+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@aclu","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care","url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care","name":"Medical and Mental Health Care | American Civil Liberties Union","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-02-15T23:16:41+00:00","dateModified":"2025-06-17T20:46:34+00:00","description":"The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/prisoners-rights\/medical-and-mental-health-care"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/","name":"American Civil Liberties Union","description":"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. Our mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees.","inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"American Civil Liberties Union","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue\/46581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue\/46581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210818,"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue\/46581\/revisions\/210818"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue\/46637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}