Health Care in the Federal Bureau of Prisons

Fact or Fiction

Abstract

Having spent five years imprisoned in Federal Medical Centers (FMC), I have substantive experience with the health care delivery system of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP). Intimately familiar with the symbolic quality of health care provided, I lived the rationing of health care practiced by FBOP medical personnel, and saw the organized denial of medical care to wards of the FBOP. Medical care within the FBOP is symbolic, with minimal expectation of improving prisoners' health. Discretionary medicine is top-down FBOP policy. The symbolic health care(less) provided by the FBOP is the focus of the present article.