inmate

County and the Sheriff’s Department to provide inmates with adequate medical, dental and mental health care, protect them from harm, provide safe and humane confinement conditions.

He further described Patterson's current jail conditions in a female maximum security prison, where she spends 22 hours a day in her cell with no contact with other inmates due to her "major offender status".

She describes being strip searched, served "nearly inedible" food and how inmates who refuse to eat are threatened with "solitary confinement".

He said the rules for testing prisoners' suitability for graduated release should be tightened as the prison service said most inmates do stick to the terms of day release.

But once inmates are released, accessing this kind of treatment becomes even more difficult, experts say.