Principle #12: Stop collaborating with the criminal punishment system to violate people in custody, including through performing cavity searches at the request of police or prison officials; evaluating competency to stand trial; experimenting on and sterilizing people who are incarcerated; facilitating torture; or administering the death penalty
SUBSECTIONS
Why
Invitation / Action
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Reflection Questions
Reflect
Research
Practice
Imagine
Return to 13 Principles
Why
Health care providers collaborate with police, corrections, military, and intelligence agencies to facilitate torture (including “enhanced interrogation”). They participate in experimentation and forced sterilization of people who are incarcerated. They are involved in evaluations to render people competent to stand trial or be put to death. And they participate in the administration of the death penalty.
Invitation / Action
We call on health care providers involved in these situations to speak out and refuse to participate.
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More immigrant women say they were abused by ICE gynecologist - Guardian
Read the APHA Statement on Addressing the Harms of the Carceral System
Read our resource on Refusing Carceral Collaborations which has examples of ways in which health care workers have worked to provide care in the face of coercive systems.
Reflection Questions
Reflect
Make a list of all the ways you can think of that medical providers participate in the criminal punishment system from arrest to the imposition of the death penalty. Are these consistent with the primary principle of "do no harm"?
Research
How are health care providers in your community participating in the criminal punishment system? In your institution? Are they participating in prosecutions, competency proceedings, and death penalty executions?
Read about the impact of a nonconsensual genital exam on an incarcerated trans man
Survivors of California’s Forced Sterilizations: ‘It’s like my life wasn’t worth anything’ - Guardian
American Psychological Association Bolstered CIA Torture Program - NYT
Practice
Who are the people, groups, organizations and allies who you can build with to push back against such practices? Make a list and convene a gathering to develop a plan for refusal to participate in such harms.
Imagine
What would happen if health care providers refused to participate in executions? If they refused to participate in abortion prosecutions? In any prosecutions of the people entrusted to their care? How might the world look different if providers refused to participate in the harm of criminalization?
Read the Angels of Bread by Martin Espada