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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Aviva Stahl in Burlington, New Jersey, with photographs by Ismail Ferdous

‘He was a human being’: US prisoners are dying from treatable conditions

A Black family sits for a portrait, with two adult women - one young, one older - on the right, and a teenage boy on the left. They all look stoically at the camera, and the younger woman holds the older woman's shoulders.
Dysheeka Atkins, right, with her son Elijah Junior, 13, and stepdaughter Alexus, 25, in her apartment in New Jersey. Dysheeka’s partner, Elijah Sumler, died in prison two weeks before he was supposed to come home after serving 12 years. Photograph: Ismail Ferdous/The Guardian

Jennifer Jasper-Thompson was shocked when she received a call from the New Jersey department of corrections (DOC). Her nephew Damien Jasper, who had been incarcerated at Northern state prison in Newark, was dead at just 32.

His autopsy indicated that he had died from testicular cancer, considered one of the most treatable forms of cancer, even when caught in an advanced stage, with an overall five-year survival rate of 95%, according to the American Cancer Society.

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