A 2013 analysis found each year of incarceration shortens a person’s life span by two years. The poor quality of healthcare staffing and facilities, lack of oversight and accountability, high cost of copays charged to prisoners, and the general dehumanization that occurs in a carceral system based on punishment are among the factors that contribute to the terrible medical outcomes in America’s prison population.

Our first story is from Tylon, who works as an intensive case manager, helping people in and out of custody reentering society. And, she does stand up. While serving a prison sentence, Tylon experienced inadequate health care, suffering multiple emergency surgeries,and almost dying, and lost what for many women is the core experience of womanhood.

Tylon served 2 years in prison for violating her probation by unknowingly failing to pay restitution. The healthcare failures she experienced in prison have led to lifelong disabilities.

Tony has been out since 2011, working, married, and lighting up stages around the Bay. While in prison he watched a close friend, Jackie, die, who’s health problems weren’t taken seriously enough. Tony organized a prison strike to demand better health care treatment. This is his story.

Tony was 18 when he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for murder. He served 26 years before being released in 2011.

Pamela holds a drug and alcohol abuse counselor certification, and is finishing up a college degree. She’s now living on her own, after spending the first six years post release in a sober-living house. Before her release, Pamela watched her friend wither away and die from breast cancer because the Illinois state prison health care system took so long to respond to her complaints and secure a diagnosis and care. She shares the dehumanizing conditions her friend was subject to in the last months of her life, under medical care in prison.

Pamela served 5 years of a 9 year sentence in an Illinois state prison, for fraudulent activities. She was paroled in 2017.