Prison Healthcare Project

In 2012, the Control Yuan released an investigative report titled "Medical Deficiencies in Prisons and Detention Centers Seriously Impair Inmates' Right to Life" (101 Judicial Investigation 0046), which pointed out severe problems in correctional institutions such as inadequate medical capacity, rigid referral processes, and a shortage of medical personnel. However, 13 years have passed without substantial improvements to these deficiencies.

In 2025, the JRF received three successive petitions within three months regarding inmates and detained defendants who allegedly died due to delayed medical care in correctional facilities or the neglect of warning signs regarding their conditions:

• Case of an inmate surnamed Ch'en at Taipei Prison: Allegedly failed to return to the hospital for follow-up as instructed by medical advice, resulting in delayed treatment and death from cerebral hemorrhage.
• Case of a detained defendant surnamed Chung at Taichung Detention Center: Sought medical attention for months to no avail and died of cancer; family members were not notified.
• Case of a detained defendant surnamed Chou at Changhua Detention Center: Called for help in his cell for half an hour with no response; rigor mortis had already set in by the time he was sent to the hospital.

These cases once again highlight the long-term structural problems in the allocation of medical resources, referral procedures, and information reporting within correctional institutions—namely, the collapse of the correctional medical system and the failure of the accountability system. The JRF officially filed a petition with the Control Yuan on November 17, 2025.

2. The Medical Parole System Has Been Delayed into "Sending People Out to Die," Which Is Not Merely the Responsibility of Correctional Officers

The "Regulations Governing the Review and Administration of Medical Parole for Inmates" is formulated pursuant to the authorization of the Enforcement Act of the Prison Act, and Paragraph 1 of Article 3 explicitly regulates the disease types and requirements for inmates seeking medical parole.

In practice, however, the medical departments of most correctional facilities are staffed only by general practitioners, suffering from a severe shortage of both manpower and professional capacity. For patients requiring long-term monitoring for chronic illnesses, cancer, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions, providing sufficient diagnosis, risk assessment, and disease management is even more difficult.

Under such circumstances, when inmates need to seek medical attention outside the facility, they often have to go through cumbersome hierarchical review procedures, and any delay at any stage can cause critically ill patients to miss the window for treatment. This is not necessarily due to potential dereliction of duty by correctional officers; rather, given the overall inadequate correctional capacity with a custody-to-inmate ratio of 1:11, correctional officers can no longer spare the attention to cope with the reality of an aging prison population and increasingly complex diseases.

The deeper cause stems from long-accumulated and unreviewed criminal policies. An over-reliance on imprisonment thinking—such as the recidivism system, anti-drug policies, and anti-fraud regulations—has kept the prison inmate population at high levels for a long time. While the number of inmates has increased, the establishment of medical personnel, medical equipment, and reasonable external medical referral procedures have not been upgraded accordingly. Consequently, correctional facilities have shouldered public health responsibilities beyond their capabilities, forcing frontline correctional colleagues to work under high pressure while bearing the risks caused by the system—something no professionals should have to endure.

As seen in Table 12 of the "Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Chapter of the 4th National Report under the Two Covenants" published in June 2025, among the 854 inmates granted medical parole in 2024, 190 died, representing a mortality rate of 22.2%, which amounts to one death for every five people sent for medical care. Additionally, as seen in Table 34^[1] of the "Common Core Document Chapter of the 4th National Report under the Two Covenants", the mortality rates of inmates—whether before hospital arrival, after hospital arrival, or during guarded hospitalization—showed a slight increase in 2024 compared to 2021, three years prior. This not only highlights that the medical parole system is "too little, too late," but also substantiates that inmates' conditions are often only sent out when they have deteriorated to a point where the correctional facility can no longer handle them. Medical parole has essentially become a "institutionalized process of sending people to their deaths."

Overall, problems with prison medical care are not accidental, but rather long-standing systemic deficiencies: insufficient capacity, rigid processes, and policy imbalances mean that inmates waiting for medical treatment are "neglected" and "delayed." The government normalizes deaths resulting from missed treatment windows, turning institutional negligence into an excuse for lost lives.

A civilized society should not allow people to simply wait for death from illness merely because their freedom has been deprived.

Reforming the correctional medical system is both an obligation of the state and the bottom line of fundamental human rights.

3. This Association Issues a Public Call for Cases, Looking Forward to the Realization of Safeguarding Medical Human Rights in Correctional Facilities

"Healthcare is not a privilege, but a human right." This is not only an explicit requirement of international human rights conventions, but also the most basic bottom line of a civilized society. To continuously monitor system improvements and examine the causes behind these dilemmas, the Association is publicly soliciting relevant cases and will provide assistance based on the circumstances of individual cases. If you have an inmate serving a sentence in prison who has encountered delays in seeking medical treatment and meets the following conditions, you are welcome to make an appointment for an in-person interview at the "JRF Emergency Room".

※ For urgent situations, please make an appointment and call during office hours to confirm.

Note 1: There are doubts regarding the Ministry of Justice's statistical methods for in-custody deaths in the "Two Covenants Report":

1. Death types are categorized by "pre/post-hospital arrival death" rather than distinguishing between "in-custody/non-in-custody death," which risks diluting the responsibility of correctional institutions.
2. The report compares percentage mortality rates—which are not standardized by age and ethnicity—with the national mortality rate, failing to account for the unique demographic structure of inmates and potentially masking the substantial risk of absolute deaths increasing year by year. The prison population and the national population are completely different in age structure, health status, disease distribution, and gender ratios. Furthermore, inmates are highly mobile, and the duration of their exposure to mortality risks varies, which may mislead the public's understanding of correctional medical issues.

Correctional Medical Rights Appeal Project:

(1) Defendants in Custody

Those who have experienced serious health problems, and whose defense counsel or themselves have applied to the court for medical parole or release on bail, but were rejected.

(2) Defendants Whose Custody Has Been Discontinued

Those who have been released from detention, but encountered delayed medical care, improper treatment, or worsening conditions during their detention.

(3) Inmates

Those who meet any of the circumstances in Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the "Regulations Governing the Review and Administration of Medical Parole for Inmates", have applied for medical parole but were refused, or have experienced significantly insufficient treatment within the prison leading to deteriorating conditions.

We hope the government can face up to the inadequacy of medical capacity in correctional facilities, comprehensively improve the detention environment, elevate medical expertise, and simplify external medical procedures, so that correctional facilities can truly become places that safeguard health and dignity rather than a "medical vacuum" that breeds fear.

Read More

• Cases of In-Custody Deaths Due to Delayed Medical Treatment Occur Frequently; JRF Urges Control Yuan to Thoroughly Investigate and Issues Public Call for Cases