In today’s Department of Justice and Public Safety (JPS) appropriations conference committee meeting, Senator Ellie Kinnaird (D – Orange), asked why hospitals would need to incur additional security costs to create a physical buffer zone between inmate patients and other patients if guards were already present.
One would think the answer to that question is obvious: they may be extremely dangerous or violent. A physical buffer is needed in hospitals for the same reason bars and individual cells are needed in prisons. Guards, of course, are a necessary part of the security equation, but they are not alone sufficient to secure a prisoner who may be extremely dangerous. These safety concerns add another dimension to the inmate health care conversation. This also seems to indicate that it may be easy to forget the paramount importance of keeping violent and dangerous criminals away from the public.
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