Incarcerated people matter, their health matters, and their living conditions matter; this project is an attempt to document and politicize the health and living conditions of incarcerated people. Alabama prisons are known for their cruel conditions, high homicide rate, their use of the death penalty, and much more. Through this project, I want to make the bold case that prisons are places of health violence to the point of their existence being a public health crisis. This website is created as a graduation requirement for my bachelor’s in Medical Anthropology. While this project is for an academic assignment, I hope that it can be a contribution to a broader community discussion in Alabama and about prisons nationally.
A main limitation I would like to point out is this website’s failure to address how gender plays a role in health violence in prisons. This is due to a general lack of resources about Alabama prisons, media’s focus on men’s prisons, and a lack of time to address this topic in the length it needs.
Reading tip
For the best educational experience with this website, I recommend going through the sections in the order they are presented in the menu tab. I have attached videos in all of these sections which are included as a supplemental source, but understand that not everyone has the time to read and watch everything. In that case, I recommend people watch all of the videos and read the conclusion page. The videos are news clips and posts from local organizations, they include stories from incarcerated people which is the most important source and my conclusion will serve as a through line to connect these different stories to a centralized theme of prisons as a public health crisis.
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
– Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, ed. Frank Barat (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016), 23.
PRISONS ARE A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS: ALABAMA PAVES THE WAY 