I would guess, Richard Bridge, that you are not aware that on occasion a prison system will try to release a chronically ill prisoner early so that they will not have to spend more money on him or her. Medical care is free to the prisoner. By law.

I realise that you are a barrister(?)/lawyer but I agree with Alice that you have gotten most of your information about USA prisons from the movies or from highly biased sources. Usually foreign, no doubt, and most likely they too got their information from the movies.

Don't believe everything you read and only half of what you see.