Should criminals get access to medical benefits while in prison?

It can feel galling to see convicted criminals get access to high level health care services while in prison. But there are good reasons why the justice system ensures basic health care for all.

In September 2026 it was reported that convicted murderer, Erin Patterson, who served lethal death cap mushrooms to her in-laws, had been approved to receive the weight loss drug, Ozempic. The news triggered outrage in some circles that a convicted criminal was receiving what was perceived as medical benefits at taxpayers’ expense while in prison. 

Patterson is not the only case of convicted criminals receiving medical benefits while incarcerated. Bradley Murdoch, who was serving a life sentence for the 2001 murder of backpacker Peter Falconio, received extensive treatment for terminal throat cancer, and received palliative care, where he was allowed out on excursions in his dying days. 

Then there’s Alicia Schiller, who sought access to IVF while serving a 16 year sentence for the murder of mother-of-four, Tyrelle Evertsen-Mostert. While the court gave her permission to access the services at her own expense, several IVF clinics refused to provide services to Schiller, who ultimately withdrew her application. On the other hand, drug trafficker and organised crime figure, Dale David Williams, was given permission to take part in IVF, subsequently fathering a child with his parter, who was living outside of prison. 

These cases raise the question of what benefits should be afforded to convicted criminals while they are in prison? Is it fair that people who have committed serious – sometimes heinous – crimes, be given access to medical treatments taxpayer expense? Or would it be committing a further injustice to deny them access to health care? 

Moral dissonance

It’s entirely natural that when we see someone commit a serious moral offence that we want to see them punished. It’s a deep-rooted aspect of our nature. Just hearing about someone harming others is enough to trigger strong feelings of outrage. And outrage, by its nature, motivates us to censure the wrongdoer, often by inflicting harm back upon them in retribution or revenge. This is one of the core psychological mechanisms that helped our distant ancestors regulate problematic behaviour in small-scale societies over hundreds of thousands of years, and we still carry that tendency with us today. 

So when we see a wrongdoer apparently receiving some benefit or perk, like access to IVF or palliative care, or we see those whom we deem responsible for their punishment showing leniency, it can trigger a kind of moral dissonance. It can be hard to stomach the idea that a wrongdoer could gain any help from whose who are supposed to be punishing them for their crimes. 

However, as a society, we have decided that unilateral retribution or revenge are no longer the ways we deal with serious crime. Instead of leaving justice in the hands of the victims, we have outsourced justice to the state. The idea is that impartial policing and courts, which (in principle) follow set procedures and are subject to strict oversight, are better placed to mete out justice than individuals or groups that are driven by indignation or outrage. In fact, we have made unilateral punishment of wrongdoing, in the form of vigilantism, itself a crime. 

And over the decades, we have slowly changed how we think the state ought to punish wrongdoers. Gone is a fixation on retribution, along with the “cruel and unusual” punishments of ages past, including public shaming, humiliation, exile, or inflicting physical pain. In their place, is a more consequentialist approach to punishment, one that seeks to deter crime, rehabilitate wrongdoers where possible, and provide public safety by locking them behind bars.  

In fact, the primary form of punishment for serious crime today is the deprivation of liberty. In a liberal society that is based on the freedom of individuals to live their life as they choose, stripping them of that freedom is deemed sufficient censure for their crimes. 

Part of this shift in punishment is also motivated by a belief that all people – even serious wrongdoers – have a baseline of basic human rights that must be respected, such as a right to a fair trial, dignity and access to basic needs, like food, water shelter and health care.

Also that the state has a duty of care to anyone in its care, even prisoners. This is why, in the cases above, the official justifications for providing access to health care were not on the basis of whether it the prisoners ‘deserved’ it, but on the expert opinion of medical professionals based entirely on physical and mental health concerns.  

This doesn’t mean there can’t still be reasonable disagreement over what kinds of medical treatments prisoners ought to have access to. There is difference between life-saving treatments for things like cancer or a stroke and discretionary treatments, such as cosmetic surgery. Although things can get a bit muddier when considering things like weight loss drugs. On the one hand, these are often perceived to be luxuries, but they are also used to prevent serious health issues, such as diabetes – and the taxpayer might end up footing a significantly higher bill for the latter.  

The justice system is far from perfect, and can often run counter to our intuitions. It’s understandable that many people are outraged at the prospect of seeing criminals receive health benefits while in prison. But if we believe that all people should be treated with a baseline level of dignity, and that the state has a duty of care to anyone in its protection, then we should be cautious about calling for even hardened criminals to be denied basic health care.