Prisons are woefully ill-equipped for their current role as the nations primary mental health facilities.
Prison officials have been more concerned about sparing the sensitivities of executioners and witnesses than protecting the condemned prisoner from pain. They are more concerned with appearances than with the reality.
I've been doing prison monitoring for many years, and the consistency of the complaints indicates that there was a serious problem at Jena, ... Just about every inmate who was interviewed said they saw someone else abused, or were abused themselves.