Out with the Bad In with the New

Norwegian Prison Example

Does this video show that Norway has the most humane Penal System in the world? Should America consider transforming its violent and corrupt prisons into rehabilitation clinics like Norway has in place? I personally love the Norwegian Prison System and believe America should implement the very same policies. It’s not that I want to see a bunch of “wackos” and murderers prance around on horses and loving life. It simply is because Norway’s system represents a more humanistic approach then the present day American system.

Which brings me to the point of this blog; why does the American Punishment regime aim towards punishment instead of rehabilitating its very own citizens? America has always been a country who punishes its criminals. With America’s main goals of punishment being deterrence and incapacitating offenders it’s hard to believe we want to stop crime at all. With one of the world’s worst recidivism rates at 52% it hard to believe America still uses such an “old school” approach on crime. Norway seems to punish the crimes, while rehabilitating its offenders. This video gives good evidence that Norway is on the right track even with radical ideals of rehabilitation.

SOLUTION: This type of system would be even more perfect for the thousands of Americans serving prison sentences for drug offences. Giving a prisoner a since of purpose and not locking up the door and throwing away the key should be the next system America uses instead of its current Punishment system. This video gives perfect evidence of why. I do not however support the law that implements just a 21 year sentence max sentence for any crime. I do believe some people should be locked up for life. I just feel that there are more humane ways of keeping a person out of the general public without throwing them in a cage.

Written By: Lucas Hart

Prison remains a stigma for eternity

One way to drastically change the current American Punishment regime is by getting rid of the awful stigma of being an ex-con or family member of an ex-con. With better social and community support I believe this ideal is not far out of reach. One problem with going to prison is the horrible stigma that follows your time of incarceration. You are not only punished for the duration of your prison sentence but in many ways punished for life because of the negative stigma that follows. The “once a con, always a con” ideal is very much alive in America. America has seems to have no empathy for ex-cons after they are released back into society and this is another contributing factor to why America has such a high prisoner recidivism rate. These ex-prisoners find it near impossible to find legitimate work, so many resorts back to their criminal behaviors that lead them to prison in the first place. If America strips this stigma of what prisoners represent and in a sense give them a chance then one would start to see less people going back to prison in my perspective.

I think America would be pleasantly surprised to see recidivism rates and crime rates drop significantly if the system institutes more community and social support for ex-cons and families of ex-offenders. This would allow ex-offenders to get a helping hand at becoming an ideal citizen. I believe people have the capability of changing and modeling their lives to becoming better people. By giving these people a chance to succeed and chase the “American Dream” one would start to see the beginning to a brand new chapter in the American Punishment Regime.

Written By: Lucas Hart

Racism Within a Class System

I want this blog entry to examine the injustice that the 2011 American Justice System still shows even today. We seemed to bring up race and class inequality a lot this quarter. Most people associate racism and classism as manly a past event of the 18^th and 19^th century. Well there are plenty of racist and classist injustices still taking place across modern day America.

Brooklyn worst

I read a story yesterday about police officers in Brooklyn and Queens who were routinely planting crack cocaine on people in African American lower income neighborhoods. What is shocking about this case is there are over 50,000 arrests being questioned on low level marijuana offences, and out of the 50,000 arrest 86% were either African American or Latino. The start of America’s racist system is the street cop. That officer is capable of arresting anyone on any kind of charge so a better system needs to help prevent wrongful arrest on young minorities in America. When you challenge the professional integrity of the police officers you are challenging the legitimacy of the entire Judicial System. Just like their fellow correctional officers, police officers need to keep the trust of the general public/jail yard. More officers need to step forward and show the dark secrets of so many corrupt police officers, mainly in order to get respect back amongst the people.

A solution to this kind of problem would be to FIRST pass legislation against unprofessional/corrupt police officers. With proper laws in place against dirty cops and their crooked counterparts, the system could regain control and punish the right people. Second the police agencies need to take away any type of quota for number of arrest needed. It is an injustice in itself to tell a police officer who’s real job title is “to protect and serve” to go out and arrest a certain number of citizens.

Written by: Lucas Hart

Person Gain off of Imprisonment

Federal and State governments in America have had a long history of relying on Private Organizations to house inmates. Private prisons are a disease that is slowly killing American citizens and unless a vaccine is created, society will welter to its power. Private prisons in America imprison American citizens for profit. This is heavily seen in the South but is evident across America. With private organizations using forced labor and imprisonment for personal gain one cannot help but compare it to American slavery on Africans. The Corrections Corporation of America is the largest organization involved with the privatization of prisons in America. With corporations like the CCA in power, more innocent people will be affected by the strong hold of private organizations.

http://www.cca.com/

The video on the link above shows you what the CCA would like you to believe is going on in their correctional prisons. However, narratives such as Prison Inc. written by K.C Carceral shine the dark light on Private prisons. Unlike what CCA tries to demonstrate in their video Carceral gives you an inside look at the dangers of living in these private prisons.

Private prisons need to be abolished in America and our government needs to take a greater look at how we are selling our own citizens off like cheap cattle. In the land of the FREE and home of the brave, no man should be punished for the finical benefit of another person or group.

Written by: Lucas Hart

The Forgotten Prisoner

It is estimated that there are a little over 300,000 mentally ill offenders in American prisons today. It is not acceptable, and needs to fix its current system. America saw a huge rise in prison population after the abolishment of psychiatric hospitals in the late 1960’s. Are prisons however, a better solution than psychiatric wards?

The answer to that question is NO. With an already overcrowded prison population that will reach over 2 million housed offenders by the year 2013, it is not a good idea to continue to imprison the mentally ill. It is doing nothing but contributing to the growing number of problems that prisons across the United States face. While some inmates have the capability of changing and molding into becoming model citizens, I think it takes a much deeper and better understanding than being a correctional officer to take care of the mentally ill. These correctional officers and faculty of the prison institutions are not trained psychiatrist. With some prisons only having one psychiatrist on duty it is very hard to maintain the accommodations that these mentally ill patients need.

SOLUTION: Psychiatric hospitals need to be reopened and used better than before. It was the system its self that failed in the 1960’s not the idea of having mentally ill hospitals. If we administrate a more humane type of hospital and do not abuse our mentally ill prisoners at these institutions I believe it would be the best idea for housing the mentally ill criminal offenders. We have to remember that it is not the offenders fault for suffering from such diseases and it is our job as society to make sure we seek proper help for these offenders.

Written by: Lucas Hart

Another Fault of the System

http://video.app.msn.com/watch/video/changes-improve-officer-safety-at-monroe-prison-after-biendl-murder/1v7o7gjbn

One of the most important people within the punishment regime is: the guards; the correctional officers; the people that are actually carrying out the punishment in our society. These individuals are basically another extension of our punishment; they are free and abiding citizens of the law; yet are considered one of the worst jobs ever in our society. This clip from msn is about the death of a correctional officer, which I see is another huge problem within our punishment society. It’s not the death that is wrong, death is a part of life and risked every day, the problem is that she died while working, which shows the unstableness of the prisons and the lack of safety for the officers and prisoners. This is a huge problem for the punishment regime, if the way in which we are punishing is also hurting those working for the system, doesn’t that make for a bad system? Then there is the risk of death towards the other prisoners; granted they are criminals serving their punishments, their punishments are essentially the alternative to death; therefore if the risk of being killed during ones’ punishment, why not just kill every criminal? It adds up the same way? A great resource to this topic of what correctional officers suffer through was Newjack by Ted Conover, which takes an inside look as a correctional officer in the famous Sing-Sing prison. He not only highlights the rough and terrible working conditions both physically and mentally, but also the impact on the other parts of his life, family, friends, self-image, etc.

I would think solutions to these problems would be fairly easy to do, conceptually at least. The main failure here is lack of safety for correctional officers and prisoners; solution, improve them. Unfortunately as seen in the video, change for safety occurs as a cost of an officer. Safety needs to be at the forefront of our punishment regime, whether it is the correctional officer or the prisoner.

Understanding Why America Chooses to Punish

Asking the question as to why our society chooses to punish has always been a practical one. Why is it that our laws are they way they are? Members of society have decided that rules must be followed in order to remain within their society. If someone decides to negate these laws that are set, they will be punished in some way. This is the reason as far as why we decide to punish. It is important to understand furthermore what the punishment is actually doing for society though.

America is among the top developed nations in the world. There are obviously many reasons as to why we are such a highly developed nation and the security of our citizens is very important to each individual. The laws that are set up in our nation are designed to initially keep each citizen safe and law-abiding. If someone chooses to break the law they are punished through four types of punishment; a fine, probation, incarceration, and more severely, capital punishment. Each one of those punishments has a different effect on the offender, as well as society. I think that these punishments are very reasonable for whatever the offender commits, and in the end has to follow. But turning to the initial question as to why we punish, there are a few good explanations.

I found an interesting poll on a forum that twenty people voted on as far as why it is important to punish. The poll can be seen at: http://forums.govteen.com/debates-discussions/321088-most-important-reason-punishing-criminals.html. There were four possible choices for why punishing criminals is necessary; retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and societal protection. The answer that received the most votes was societal protection, with ten votes. I would agree and vote for the same choice. The other three are important factors when it comes to why punishment is necessary, but I think that the protection of members in society is the number one reason. Citizens of America have a lot of freedom and rights, which is due to the huge success of our laws. Keeping people safe is a huge priority for America, and having a person on the streets that is hurting others through violence and such, must be punished. I think that we choose to punish the way that we do for the sole purpose of protecting our citizens, and providing them with a sense of security at all times.

By Brian Taylor

Hope

The punishment regime in the United States can be clearly seen as an institution that isn’t without fault. The fact remains that the system that is entact today is one that doesn’t take in consideration or the importance of families of the convicted; creating a whole new group of people that suffer because of the way in which we as a society administer punishment. Inspired by the story of Hope Meadows, a community that built on the foundations of support to one another with adoption of the special needs kids (children with medical difficulties or children cycled through the foster care system), I propose a similar solution to the lack of support that families of the incarcerated by building a community alike.

Hope Meadows is a wonderfully created community in Rantoul, Illinois. The concept is quite simple: a foster-like community where couples or families move in and eventually care for or adopt children that are in need of homes and love desperately. The community includes a large support system of seniors, who are loving grandparents. These children are often and heavily abused mentally, physically or sexually within the failing foster care system. The community is set up extensively to give support to everyone involved. The NBC video report below explains further along with Hope Meadows’ website.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/at-hope-meadows-it-takes-a-village/6n9ta6b

http://www.generationsofhope.org/hope-meadows/

So for the solution of the families of the incarcerated, a community-based program and community would be able supply a better support system to survive. These families are continuously suffering with the loss of their loved during imprisonment. It would also include the senior help because with the growing number of seniors every year, this would provide a more positive solution.

Donald Braman’s book, Doing Time on the Outside; Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America, essentially outlines their problems further. Braman identifies the material and social consequences of incarceration on families as a significant problem of our punishment regime. Material consequences are the losses that families suffer as a result of incarceration, such new clothes or book bag for the children. Social consequences include the fact that once a family has become affiliated with a known offender, others may potentially be inclined to not associate with anyone who may be involved with the proposed offender. These consequences result in much pain and suffering for these families, which is then in return passed generationally which continues these problems. I think that this solution of a community program based on supporting each other during difficult times is the best to alleviate these externalities of our prison regime.

Effects of Incarceration on a Single Mother

Incarceration in the United States has a negative effect on the stability of families and households throughout the country; however, the group who is affected the most is single mothers. Being a single mother in the United States is a struggle on its own, and adding a factor such as incarceration of the father makes life ten times as hard. Single mothers who have the father as a functioning citizen of society are given many opportunities that these other women are not so fortunate to have. Cash flow and support are the two most beneficial aspects of a single mother’s life that help transcend her future endeavors. With a significant other locked behind bars a mother must not only take care of a child and herself, but now she must carry the burden of worrying about her income. Without steady income a single mother cannot provide fundamental needs to live, such as food, shelter, or even proper healthcare. A father who is not incarcerated is able to work and provide these necessary life functions for his family, which inevitably leads to a mother having more time to create opportunity for herself and her child or children. Support, which is the second necessary element for a single mother to prosper, is needed in all aspects of life. The support keeps the mothers spirit at an optimal level and it also provides a less stressful environment for the child to grow up in. However, if the father is incarcerated a mother must rely solely on herself and government programs just in order to get by. This is not a suitable lifestyle for a woman in the United States and the problem is constantly getting worse. As a male, we must work together and help keep one another on the right path and out of prison. Single mothers will benefit, future generations will be better off and most important, American society will be better.

By Brian Taylor