Public Position on Health Care for Inmates

An overwhelming majority feel prisoners must be supported with health care. This was the response of 80% of participants of the poll to the following question: “Should inmates receive medical attention?”

Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) carried out the poll between 7/6/14 and 9/22/14, and the total number of participants was 56,000.

NCCHC board member Joseph E. Paris, PhD, MD, states it makes sense from a legal, ethical, social, and public health point of view to provide health care to prisoners, but doing so creates the perceived injustice that those who behave badly are rewarded with free medical care, while those who soldier on working for low pay and resist the temptation to resort to crime are punished by not receiving free care,” he observes.

In different countries the approach to medical coverage of prisoners has its own peculiarities. Half of respondents were from the USA - 50%, from Canada - 5%, from Britain - 13%, from Australia – 8% and from other countries – 24%.

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, comments that “civilized, highly developed countries such as UK, Canada, have long endowed all their residents with medical care coverage. The fact that the U.S. lags behind riles a number of people, and especially those who understand how universal coverage applies to all U.S. prisoners. This dilemma will persist until health insurance is available to all U.S. residents.”

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.