美国四分之一囚犯死于同一所联邦监狱

A new NPR investigation has revealed a disturbing pattern.

NPR的一项新调查揭示了一个令人不安的模式。

Yeah, of the 5,000 people who died in the past decade while in federal custody, 1 out of 4 died in the same prison.

是，在过去十年中，5000人在联邦拘留期间死亡，其中四分之一死于同一监狱。

NPR's Meg Anderson is with us now to explain what's behind those numbers. Meg, good morning.

NPR新闻的梅格·安德森将为我们解释这些数字背后的原因。梅格，早上好。

Good morning.

早上好。

So let me just clarify one thing. There are more than 120 federal prisons, and we are talking about just one. So tell us what's going on there.

我说明一件事。美国有120多所联邦监狱，而我们要讲的只是其中一所。那么请告诉我们那里发生了什么。

Yeah. So it is a prison in North Carolina. It's called the Butner Federal Medical Center.

好。这是北卡罗来纳州的一所监狱，监狱的名字是巴特纳联邦医疗中心。

And to an extent, more death there makes total sense.

在某种程度上，那里拥有高死亡人数完全说得通。

It's a prison hospital and it's the Bureau of Prisons' main cancer treatment facility.

这是一所监狱医院，也是监狱管理局主要的癌症治疗机构。

Cancer is one of the BOP's leading causes of death.

癌症是监狱管理局犯人的主要死亡原因之一。

So that explains a lot of it, but it doesn't explain all of it.

这很大程度上解释了死亡原因，但无法解释所有原因。

When we started looking into the experiences of individual people, people who got really sick in prison, people who died in prison, we found stories of inmates all over the country going without needed medical care.

我们开始研究个人经历，研究那些在监狱里病得很重的人的经历，研究那些死在监狱里的人的经历，我们发现全国各地的囚犯都没有得到必要的医疗照顾。

And sometimes, when they finally did end up at Butner for advanced care, it was too late to do much for them.

就算有时他们最终在巴特纳联邦医疗中心接受高级医疗时，也已经太晚了。

Tell us about some of the stories you found.

为我们讲讲一些你发现的故事。

Yeah. Well, we found more than a dozen inmates who waited months and some of them even years for medical care.

好。我们发现，超过十几名囚犯等了几个月，有些囚犯甚至等了几年才得到医疗服务。

One inmate who ended up at Butner that we ended up focusing on, his name was Jeffrey Ramirez. And he found a lump in his testicle.

我们最后关注的一个在巴特纳监狱医院的犯人，他叫杰弗里·拉米雷斯。他发现他的睾丸有个肿块。

He asked to see a doctor, but he didn't get an ultrasound until more than a year after he started complaining.

他要求去看医生，但直到他抱怨一年多后才去做了超声波检查。

He was eventually diagnosed with the final stage of testicular cancer.

他最终被诊断为睾丸癌晚期。

And when I interviewed him this year, he had been released from prison early, essentially to die at home.

我今年采访他时，他已经提前从监狱释放，基本上是在家里死去。

And he felt sure that it would have been different if he had been on the outside.

他确信，如果他在外面，情况会有所不同。

I know myself. That's the first place I would go. I'd go to the doctor. This would not happen, and I'm angry. I'm angry because it didn't have to get this far.

我了解我自己。医院是我要去的第一个地方。我会去看医生。这不会发生，我很生气。我很生气，因为没必要走到这一步。

Yeah. And he died just 11 days after he talked with me.

他在和我谈话11天后就去世了。

OK. But, Meg, Butner is a prison hospital.

好。但是，梅格，巴特纳是一所监狱医院。

So are these men, women - I guess both - are they getting better care once they get there?

那么这些男囚犯，女囚犯——男女都包括——他们到了那里后会得到更好的医疗服务吗?

Yeah, just men, actually and not necessarily.

实际上只有男囚犯，而且不一定能获得。

We found problems there, too.

我们也发现那所医院存在几个问题。

One man in prison there, Frank Carr, he waited more than a year for heart surgery.

监狱里有一个叫弗兰克·卡尔的人，他为了心脏手术等了一年多。

When I talked to him over the phone, he sounded panicky.

我和他通电话时，他听起来很惊慌。

I do not want to die, because I've seen so many people die in here. I've witnessed people die. And I don't want to be one of the statistics.

我不想死，因为我见过太多人死在这里。我亲眼目睹了人们的死亡。我不想成为死亡统计数字中的一员。