Effects Of Prisons Essays - Penology, Prison, Solitary Confinement

Effects Of Prisons Eric Cavallari J. Foley Psychology101 10/10/00 The Downward Spiral; Psychological Effects of Prisons I have visited some of the best and the worst prisons and have never seen signs of coddling, but I have seen the terrible results of the boredom and frustration of empty hours and pointless existence -former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 out of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime. -U.S. Department of Justice One of the largest problems with the prison issue in America today is that it gets little attention. Unlike education, pollution or gun control people are usually not concerned enough to get involved with the problem until it happens to someone they love or themselves. Many people don't realize that the U.S. in on the same level as third world and totalitarian nations in it's practices of corrections, according to some activists. The prisons in the U.S. are in severe default of the international laws on human rights and cruelty. The facts have been proven true in studies done by the UN. Guards are now known to perform acts of violence on inmates that are sometimes more severe than the crime that put the inmate in prison. In one article about the harshness of the correction officers a former inmate describes one of the beatings of another inmate as one of the worst beatings he'd ever seen. The assistant Warden grabbed his testicles and starts yanking on them. At least fifty guys got i n on it maybe more. (Prison Activist Resource Center, 1) The more and more I open my eyes and read about prison conditions the more I realize that they are concentration camps in the sense that a abnormal number of people are concentrated and tortured within its confines. In a lab test done on rats, the rodents that were confined closer together were much more hostile that the ones that were given enough space to feel comfortable. This study represents a parallel to the behavior found in incarcerated humans. Jails cause the same psychological side effects as prisons, to a smaller degree, in the effects of being en-caged, however, the overall standard of living in jails is much higher. There is a decent relationship between the guards and the jailers. The jailers are allowed to interact with the same people on their 'block' between lockdown times. Lock-down is when the jailers are confined to their cells, usually at night and for a short while in the day, during a change of shift. This method allows inmates to play cards, watch TV together and at very least walk around something else besides their cell. The prison system, however, usually remains in lockdown all the time, although they can speak to each other, they usually can't see each other without a mirror. Observing these two methods, and what little problems there are in jails as opposed to prisons leads me to believe that if you treat a human being like a human being they will act like a human being. If you lock them in a cage all day they may as well act like an animal. (Prison Activist Resource Center, 1-3) People sometimes argue this case stating that the offenses committed by jailers are less serious than by prisoners and that prisons are more hostile because they house the more serious offenders. These people forget that jails hold people before they are sentenced to prison, and that a large percentage of jailers will eventually be imprisoned when their case is settled. To sum it up, most jailers are soon-to-be prisoners, so why is it that their behavior is so much more human in jail than prison? The answer is the way that they are treated in prisons. It is an informal policy that guards must be extremely authoritative to the inmates and can be removed from working at a facility even for making small talk with prisoners. This policy doesn't exist in jails. The idea upheld in prisons is that by running a tight ship they have more control over the prisoners. The truth is that it makes the prisoners more hostile. The only thing found to be more damaging