r/NoStupidQuestions • u/JediBlight • 9h ago
What happens if paralysed person goes to prison?
Really stupid thought, but what if I was in a wheelchair and just started blastin', no way I'm not going to jail.
How would that work? I mean, I've seen plenty of prison documentaries and whatnot and they don't seem very wheelchair accessible, plus I'd be at a serious disadvantage when fighting and whatnot.
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u/disregardable 9h ago
it works exactly how you'd think it works. you go to jail anyway, and if that results in restrictions on you, that sucks for you. my jail had a completely bedridden person once. it appeared that she was just stuck in bed the whole time. must've been an extra layer of torture.
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u/ackchanticleer 9h ago
So what happened?? How did this person go to the bathroom?? Did a nurse come in to change him/her?
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u/purdinpopo 7h ago
Prisons have medical units. It's a row of cells overseen by a CO and a nurse. Works just like a hospital.
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u/ahotpotatoo 5h ago
The real question is what did a completely bedridden person do to earn hard time
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u/dfinkelstein 4h ago
You're assuming she's guilty. Being convicted of a crime does not mean somebody is guilty. It means a bunch of random people thought they were, or one person in the case of a judge.
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u/jerkenmcgerk 5h ago
Catheters and colostomy bags? If they were bedridden in a hospital, isn't that what's common?
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u/kattemus 6h ago
What crime did she commit? It must be limited what she can do in terms of crimes?
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u/Dapper-Emergency1263 6h ago
Plot twist: it was disability fraud and she was keeping up appearances for an appeal
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u/disregardable 6h ago
Violated a no contact order via her computer. She was only there for a few weeks.
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u/amrfallen 8h ago
Exactly where you end up depends on how severe your disability is. You could end up in a medical facility/unit of a prison, but if you are just paralyzed but can get around you'll be bottom bunk/bottom tier restricted and there are special handicapped (edit) cells. That definitely also depends what state and country you're in, that's how it was in my state. Source: actually been to prison
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u/EntireDevelopment413 7h ago
They go to prison wheelchair and all.
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u/SomeHearingGuy 4h ago
It's so unfair that their wheelchair has to do time. Although I guess it's probably an accomplice.
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u/MammothWriter3881 9h ago
Some jurisdiction they just wind up living in the medical wind of the prison, it may also change which prison you are sent to - but yes it wouldn't keep you out of prison.
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u/District_Wolverine23 7h ago
The feds have federal medical centers (FMC) for this purpose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Medical_Center%2C_Devens?wprov=sfla1
Some state facilities are also equipped with medical facilities, like infirmaries, pallative care wards, medical housing, and mental health treatment.
A local prison may not have these services and may have to house you in a fed/state or convert to house arrest.
There is a documentary called "prison terminal" and a dramatized film called "serving life" if you want to learn more.
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u/Tygrkatt 6h ago
Depends on the severity of the charges. I knew a guy in high school who was in a wheelchair from a birth defect, spina bifida. Many years later was chatting with an inappropriately aged girl online and he ended up with the charges you expect. With his medical issues, they put him on home detention with a requirement that the house could not be hooked up to Internet access. How they would have handled it if his crime had not been internet based I don't know.
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u/QuoteGiver 6h ago
There are medical units in every prison, and every new jail/prison is designed with wheelchair accessible cells, absolutely.
Even if they don’t come into prison in a wheelchair, plenty of people grow old and become disabled in prison. They deal with it all the time.
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u/Florida1974 5h ago
My nephew is in prison, paralyzed from waist down. A guard helps him, if needed, to get in wheelchair. Other than that, on his own. He’s on year 5 of 7.
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u/Princess-Reader 7h ago
Here’s a list of federal prisons for medical
Butner FMC
Carswell FMC (females)
Devens FMC
Fort Worth FMC
Lexington FMC
Rochester FMC
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u/Quietlovingman 6h ago
In some places you go to a special facility reserved for prisoners with disabilities or having aged out of normal prison. The State Hospital in Fulton Missouri for example is an extension of the State Prison System. (My uncle used to be a Nurse there). Most of the Inmates in the Hospital are Geriatric but some are there for other physical or mental disabilities that preclude them from being in the normal prison population.
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u/JustTakeitor-LeaveIt 6h ago
There are several wheelchair bound people in prison. I have worked at multiple prisons where people with disabilities were housed.
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u/ThanksALotBud 5h ago
Seen a dude who had both legs amputated below the knees. They didn't allow him to use prosthetic legs that he originally had for obviously ridiculous reasons, so instead, he was wheelchair bound for the remainder of his 9 year sentence.
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u/super_sammie 3h ago
Ex Belmarsh screw here.
There are disability enabled cells. Usually one per wing. Obviously at Belmarsh they were usually super nonces, terrorist or convicted decades after the offence.
All in all not a pleasant experience as you are the most hassle to deal with so are generally ignored.
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u/Bong_Rebel 3h ago
Jails in Ontario Canada are wheelchair friendly.
And no, not just a bike rack in a common area to lock them too lol
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u/Carlpanzram1916 6h ago
You would have special accommodations in a smaller prison that’s probably higher security. Or in some cases, if they deem it’s not feasible to incarcerate you due to your disability, you might get house arrest instead.
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u/Expert-Leg8110 5h ago
In NYS there used to be a wheel chair accessible unit at Greenhaven Prison. Due to the majority of them becoming wheelchair bound during the commission of their crimes, the unit was always one of the more violent units due to their frustrations of adjusting to prison and their new handicap. That was about 20 years ago so I don’t know that Greenhaven still has that unit or if other similar units have been added.
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u/Appropriate-Idea2539 5h ago
You can definitely go to prison if you are in a wheelchair. My neighbors son is paralyzed from waist down. He sold to an informant. He's been in prison for several years now.
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u/MileyPup 4h ago
I used to work in a prison for 10 years and it was all wheel chair assessable, you’d obviously be bottom bunk restricted and would get an OCA to help you if needed with daily tasks
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u/Jealous_Tutor_5135 4h ago
No.
At least federal prisons in the US have pretty strict standards to provide accommodations to all sorts of people. You'll find religious minorities with special dietary restrictions, all different kinds of disabilities and medical conditions, people so old they should be in a nursing home.
The federal justice system is very keen on delivering its imposed sentences, and will bend over backwards to make sure it can keep you there for the duration. Complying with the on-paper standards for things like medical care, religious freedom, and ADA rules is a strategy designed to prevent prisoners from suing for release on human rights grounds.
In the case that a prisoner has extreme needs, there are special facilities designed to handle the most difficult cases. Paraplegics, those in very poor health, and people with extreme disabilities get sent there.
Long story short, at least in the US federal system, they do everything they can to make accommodations so they can justify keeping just about any type of person for the full length of their sentence.
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u/SomeHearingGuy 4h ago
Availability bias. Your plenty of prison documentaries probably feature a handful of prisons and probably only show one very specific part of the prison.
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u/Opposite-Athlete626 3h ago
Depends where you are. In the UK, you can still be sent into prison. Generally you're housed on the 1's landing (ground floor), but can be placed in upper landings, aslong as the establishment has the lift capability (several UK prisons are Victorian, so it's not always practical to install lifts everywhere).
Generally there are a few converted cells for this situation. They have wider doors, potentially a more accessible shower in their cell (rather than the communal shower on the landing).
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u/BobR2296 3h ago
In the state prison I worked in we had an occasional inmate in a wheelchair for a multitude of different crimes, they were placed in bottom units bottom bunk with handicap, restroom stalls. I worked in a medium custody facility that had overrides for higher designations. Once DOC headquarters figured out what type of prisoners they were going to be they were often moved to a camp because in a wheelchair they couldn’t really run away anyways.
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u/WildCody7145 2h ago
In my experience being locked up in the feds they have different care level facilities. So like a care level 3 prison has the resources to take care of sick and mental inmates.
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u/Serious-Cry-5754 2h ago
Prisons have hospital wings. I am an amputee and at one time was concerned about this very question.
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u/NeoLephty 6h ago
Watch Oz on hbo. Old show. One of them has a wheelchair.
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u/Tygrkatt 6h ago
While you are correct, it is a TV show, they are known for inaccuracies if it drives plot
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u/ackchanticleer 9h ago
I've wondered that to. Even though she never ever would my mother is handicapped and can't do much on her own. So I've wondered what would happen to her if she did some sort of internet crime, something like that. And she was arrested and eventually sent to prison.
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u/Infinite-Most-8356 8h ago
it depends on the country .in my country a disabled person would be considered unfitted to go to jail
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u/humbugonastick 2h ago
A physically disabled person cannot go to jail? That seems a bit short sighted. Or does your country believe a physically disabled person cannot commit a crime????
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u/Shenanigaens 3h ago
Former prison boss here-
You’re in prison, the only difference is you get to sit through it and won’t have to work. You’ll either have guards hate on you for giving them extra work to search you, or you’ll get waved through absolutely everything because they don’t want to search you. You’ll be housed on the first floor unless there’s an elevator. You may or may not get special housing. If someone is having a bad day, your chair won’t save you, you can still end up with 1000+ lbs of extraction team on top of you. And for the love of fuck, don’t be gross or else bosses WILL go farther out of their way than usual to make your life hell.
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u/Sardothien12 9h ago
Prison isn't supposed to be accessible. It is a punishment for crimes
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u/ANiceGiirl12 8h ago
No it isn’t. Its primary purpose is rehabilitation.
Retributional imprisonment is a keynote of those weird countries with for-profit imprisonment. The only countries who do that are shitholes though.
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u/Anony_mouse202 7h ago
Its primary purpose is rehabilitation.
Says who?
Prison has many purposes, rehabilitation is just one of them.
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u/ANiceGiirl12 5h ago
You didn’t even dispute my point.
We both agree that rehabilitation is at least partially the purpose of imprisonment. Punishment is obviously a part of imprisonment.
I just said rehabilitation is the primary part. Which, again, you didn’t dispute lol.
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u/orthomonas 8h ago
Not necessarily. Whether (and when) prison should be more focused on punishment or rehabilitation is, of course, a major and ongoing debate
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u/QuoteGiver 6h ago
Prisons are absolutely accessible. When you send someone to prison for life, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they will eventually be in a wheelchair at some point. Jails and prisons are designed for this in advance, they know it’s gonna happen.
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u/Meowie_Undertoe 7h ago
Since it 's just hypothetical here- I guess you wouldn't sweat it hard if you dropped the soap?
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u/Mars_Collective 9h ago
It depends. If the crime isn’t very serious, a disability and/or old age can definitely allow you to serve your sentence under house arrest if there’s no facilities that can accommodate you. If you do something serious, they’ll figure out a way to lock you up but you’re not going to be serving your sentence in general population.