Death Rites Denied

Death is a subject avoided by many people and this sort of "death avoidance" is embedded in our culture, though efforts are being made to open up the subject and improve care and outcomes

 This cultural trait of avoidance becomes magnified in the prison context because prison is a already a closed society where communication and human contact is severely restricted, and changes in outside world are slow to penetrate the prison walls

 Our preliminary sense of the overarching challenges around death dying and bereavement that people face in a criminal legal system starved of resources for decades are:

- A lack of independent, legally empowered and culturally competent end-of-life care (whether palliative, practical or spiritual) 

-A lack of bereavement support (whether for families or fellow imprisoned people)

In prisons, resource constraints mean that specific challenges include:

-Unfair restrictions on use of Early Release on Compassionate Grounds (ERCG)

-Overuse of restraints at end-of-life

-Unfair restrictions on visits by imprisoned people to deathbeds and funerals of family members

-Delayed release of the bodies of imprisoned people to their families 

-Unfair restrictions on family visits to people dying in prison