It's a very broad question. Not all prisons are the same. I worked in a local county jail. It tends to bring 3 types. 1-the very bad doctor who's hired cause they can't get anyone else and typically these doctors suck. 2-A doctor wanting to go through the trenches, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and these doctors tend to give a damn and are very good, or 3-someone willing to make a lot of money cause most doctors don't want to work in a prison.
Not all 3 types are mutually exclusive.
You usually can't get any decent food in there. They usually don't let people order food in. If you want to leave to go out for a lunch it's an ordeal of going through various security checkpoints. The general culture of coworkers is cynical. The physical structure is often times not pleasant. E.g. an office that smells of bleach and no sunlight.
I didn't work but had experience with the Cincinnati jail. I worked in the St. Louis County jail. I would've been able to tolerate the Cincinnati jail but not the St. Louis jail cause the latter had people not getting appropriate care that didn't even meet the legal minimums. E.g. if a schizophrenic patient was going to be seen by a doctor for court-ordered meds (and thus then be sent to a state hospital) the process took around 11 months for the doctor to see the patient. In the meantime the person festered in a cell while they progressively got worse. In the Cincinnati jail the inmate was seen for such evaluations within days of being placed in the jail sometimes even the same day.
Despite my efforts, and putting in well over 100 hours to try to get the situation in the St. Louis jail fixed, I had no success. What it basically came down to was there wasn't enough psychologists or psychiatrists to get these inmates evaluated faster nor was the state going to intervene to improve upon it.
My first year in St. Louis a serious court case occurred where the governor was even court-ordered to improve a related situation, that is inmates not getting a lawyer in timely manner. The situation was never fixed. In every state I've lived in, if you can't afford a lawyer, the state gets you one within days at most. Missouri? Often times well over 10 months. It's terrible.
And yes you can argue it's unconstitutional but yet it still goes on here and has been going on for years. Oh yeah, in St. Louis there's a labor jail for people who can't pay debts. Yes. I'm not joking it's called "The Workhouse." Unconstitutional? Yell that word out all you want. It's there, it's going on and the people of this state seem to be fine with it. It "closed" summer of 2022 but guess what? It's still in operation.
St. Louis officials plan to use part of the Medium Security Institution known as the Workhouse as a temporary holding facility after most inmates are moved this week. Public Safety officials said they’ll use the Workhouse if the City Justice Center becomes too crowded.
news.stlpublicradio.org
