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Although a state's power to protect the public health is broad, it is restricted to preventing future harm. The state may not punish a person under its public health police powers. Administrative deprivations of liberty are tolerated only if their purpose is not punitive. The distinction between allowable restrictions and forbidden punishment is sometimes finely drawn. For example, being put in the community pesthouse was seldom a pleasant prospect, and with the closing of pesthouses, public health restrictions have frequently been carried out in prisons and jails. In one such case, the court rejected the petitioner's claim that he was being punished without due process, concluding, "While it is true that physical facilities constituting part of the penitentiary equipment are utilized, interned persons are in no sense confined in the penitentiary, and are not subject to the peculiar obloquy which attends such confinement."[112]
[112]Ex parte McGee. 105 Kan 574, 581, 185 P 14, 16 (1919).The Climate Change and Public Health Law Site
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