Treatment of those on death row - quality of care, facilities etc
In most countries prisons expose convicts to poor living conditions and some - occasionally extreme - risk of violence. Convicted prisoners often face the harshest conditions. They have low status within the prison community. As they will never be freed there is no investment in remedial or rehabilitative care. The opportunity for the prisoner to learn, to develop social skills and coping mechanisms is ignored. Prisoners have neither hope nor expectation.
The facilities
The facilities for the prisoners are similarly limited. In some countries those sentenced to death are considered to be dead to society already and thus any resource expenditure is a wasted resource. The health and other care facilities are likely to be amongst the worst available within the prison system. The system will not include any facilities for rehabilitation, and the prisoners may feel that there is no disadvantage to them in being involved in violence or drug use, and thus prisoners are likely to experience considerable periods of insecurity.
There are always tensions within the prison system about the quality of the environment provided for convicted prisoners. Within poor countries there can be considerable resentment if facilities are perceived to be 'too good.' Those sentenced to death are the lowest in the prison pecking order and the least likely to receive amenities and facilities that equal or improve on those outside the prison. If the time spent on death row is short this may have little impact, but in jurisdictions where decades can be spent on death row this can have a significant impact on mental and physical health expectation.