Prison Riots- One night guard's firsthand experience with the danger of overpopulation of inmates10/26/2014
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By: Cassie Morden Courtesy of http://visual.ly/education-vs-incarceration, this infographic shows facts about the United States's funding for education and incarceration. At the bottom is a statistic that the US is number 20 in education globally, but first in incarceration. Why can't it be the other way around? Why can't the US focus more on the education system, and less on putting people away to meet the quota?
The United States’ prison system has a long way to go before all of its problems are solved, but Tina Crouse’s recent success from Ohio’s new three tier prison system may inspire other prisons around the country to customize their programs to eliminate long standing issues. Tina Crouse dealt drugs for fourteen years before being arrested and placed in one of Ohio’s jails. During her incarceration, she moved from the control tier (where the most dangerous individuals are placed), to the general population tier to the reintegration tier (which offers service and job opportunities). Along the way, she earned her GED, a college certificate and a job in the jewelry industry after learning to make clay beads to form necklaces. However, this anti-recidivism program cannot escape from the overall problems of the prison system. Officials are now claiming that prisoners are not being placed into the proper tier, they are being placed wherever there are enough beds to hold them. Another major struggle is finding enough purposeful programs for the prisoners and the limited number of programs and job opportunities prevent all the prisoners in the reintegration tier from benefiting from their placement. It seems to me that whenever a step forward is taken to attempt to improve the prison system, two steps backward are taken. This three tier program has so much potential to educate prisoners and provide them with jobs on their release, but the prison overpopulation that is plaguing the entire country is ruining the chances of inmates who have improved their behavior and improved themselves to get out of prison and stay out. To: Austin Johnson
From: Will Brueckner I do not know how to comment on other people’s comments on this website but this is a question that was brought up about my last blog post… Q: I understand where you are coming from completely, but are we really able to compare this (prison labor) to slavery? Because I'm assuming that the underlined sentence in your blog was insinuating that it is a form of slavery. If this truly could be considered a form of slavery, why is it being continued? Or why is it that the government doesn't see it as that? A: When we think of slavery we think of pre-civil war southern plantation owners whipping persons of African descent in the cotton fields. They were paid nothing, had a horrible standard of living and had no freedom whatsoever. So no we cannot compare prisoners in the private sector to that specific form of slavery. I looked up the modern definition of slavery and it is now considered to be “a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.” With this broader definition in mind, here is how this privatized prison system is a new form of slavery... We all know that being in prison means that you are giving up your liberties as a free man or woman for your particular sentence. Your life and liberty is in the hands of the prison staff and this goes for both private and federal prisons. But what private prison corporations like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) do with your fortune is the key in determining if they are enslaving inmates or not. A state or federal prison is required to pay their inmates minimum wage when they perform manual labor like manufacturing park benches, picnic tables, lingerie, or traffic signs. The CCA on the other hand has their inmates do manual labor for 17-25 cents/hr for a 6 hour work day and 50 cents for “highly skilled positions”. Everywhere else in the nation, a legal business and government-operated prison has to pay their workers minimum wage while the CCA gives their inmates a paycheck of no more than $200 a month. This means that nobody can compete with the costs of private prison labor in the US. Just like it was cheaper to buy cotton from the south than from Europe in colonial times it is cheaper to buy anything produced by CCA owned prisoners. This is why the government subcontracts all the manufacturing of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens to privatized correctional facilities. There have been other incidents of businesses firing employees at factories and replacing them with prison labor because it is so much cheaper. Say you need 500,000 teddy bears in the next 2 months. Build-a-Bear Workshop sends you a contract saying they can do that for $2 million based on covering their overhead costs plus a 10% mark up to turn a profit. The overhead costs would be the necessary resources (cloth, fluff, plastic, etc), shipping and labor. The CCA sends you a contract saying they can complete the task for $1.5 million. Any good businessman or woman is going to take the CCA’s proposal for obvious reasons. In reality it would take the CCA no more than $750,000 to do this in 2 months because they have a workforce of 100,000 that is paid 3 cents to the dollar while working in chains. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems. Moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells. What ends up happening in this situation is that the CCA turns a ridiculous profit for its high-ranking executives and shareholders while cutting out legitimate businesses. And how do they bring in all this revenue? The answer: by exploiting prisoners and executing absolute power over their life, liberty, and fortune. That, my friend, is slavery today. Stay tuned for the answers to why it is still being continued and why the government turns a blind eye! By Erinn Klein
“A comparative study of more than 600 adolescents with and without learning disabilities found a higher frequency of risk-taking behaviors such as smoking, marijuana use, delinquency, acts of aggression, and gambling among the youth with learning disabilities” (Heward). Can you imagine having your mind be your own worst enemy? This is a common feeling among people with learning, emotional, and behavioral disabilities. Troubles with learning often-- though not always-- leads to frustration, giving up, and acting out. Some stats for you… 75% of students with learning disabilities exhibit poor social skills. 40% of all incarcerated kids in 2009 had a disability: learning, emotional, or behavioral. Kids with emotional or behavioral disorders are 13.3 times more likely to be arrested before they graduate high school than kids who don’t have a disability. And what about the kids who go undiagnosed? Who have behaviors that are really just cries for help, but nobody realizes? What happens when you have a disability… and absolutely no one knows it? It’s unsurprising to me that a child in this instance wouldn’t act out. Better diagnosis can and should lead to better help for these kids. By Erinn Klein
I recently found a great article from National Geographic about an innovative prison program taking place in several Indiana penitentiaries. Specifically Level 4, Maximum-Security-Solitary-Confinement type places. Laura Bates, a professor at Indiana State University, has been teaching Shakespeare to prisoners in these super-max facilities for the past fifteen years. She guides them in reading a play and then discussing it, and encourages the prisoners to connect what they’ve been reading to their own lives. Bates insists that the inmates are people who “need education the most” (Berlin). Interestingly, teaching Shakespeare to prisoners isn’t unique-- there are actually similar programs in 11 states and a handful of countries, but what makes Bates’ program special is that she includes text analysis and critical thinking and rewriting the plays as ways for the prisoners to connect to Shakespeare’s words. Discussion follows every reading, and then the prisoners actually rewrite the plays in their own language. Themes like violence, gangs, and revenge are common. Many of the students are learning that what was true back then is often true now, and that they can use these themes to evaluate their own values and choices. One prisoner and member of the program said: “I want to remove the influence argument and leave Macbeth to stand on his own for his behavior. As I've tried to do myself. I'm still finding reasons for why I behaved the way I did." Bates also says that the simple act of bringing the inmates together as a group is beneficial to them so that they may learn to be productive members of a larger society. “Prior to the program, says Bates, the 20 inmates who spent the most time with Shakespeare had had more than 600 write-ups for violent behavior. During and after the program, they totaled just two—for cell-phone possession” (Berlin). The program teaches a lot of prisoners serving life sentences, but the ones that do get out often have a reduced recidivism rate. And not only are they less violent while in prison, but some of those inmates in the program who are lucky enough to get out are doing amazing things with their freedom. One of the original members of the program, a repeat offender, is having his interpretations of the Shakespearean works he’s read cited in scholarly papers and at conferences. He’s written 37 synopses and 13 workbooks, all of which Bates uses in her own college classes. Teaching Shakespeare to prisoners may seem odd, yes. But it’s having amazing results, and Bates’ program is spreading. Other professors are starting to initiate similar programs in other prisons. And I think it’s high time we bring education to the people who need it and have the least access to it. You don’t have to teach them about the whole world-- just teach them enough for them to begin to immerse themselves in it. Shakespeare’s magical prose is not only changing the way prisoners are learning and being taught, but it’s even changing the way they view the world itself. And I think this is a very powerful thing. Police Officer: “License and registration”
Typical stoner: “Right here officer.” PO: “Smells like marijuana in here. Have you been smoking the reefer?” TS: “No officer, I swear to high I’m not God!” PO: “I see an ounce of OG Alien Diesel in your backseat. Is that yours?” TS: “I don’t know how that got here….” PO: “You need to step out of the car son, you are in the possession of illegal narcotics. You have the right to remain silent….” If federal law were followed down to the T, this typical stoner (25 years of age) would be arrested and face time in prison for the simple possession of an illegal substance. For a maximum of a full year, if it was a first time offense, this typical stoner could share a jail cell with violent criminals such as rapists, serial killers, armed robbers and an assortment of other violent criminals with a thousand dollar fine. But is this fair socially, politically and economically? How can we prevent overspending on prisons that are subsidized by taxpayer money? Why do incarceration rates stay the same or rise when crime rates decrease? Is incarceration along with strict drug laws the way to address non-violent drug offenders? These are a lot of questions that directly relate to the prison topic but a full series of novels could be written on any particular question. As a group we are going to focus primarily on privately owned prisons and solutions on how to keep non-violent drug offenders out of prison. I assume that most of you have never heard of a “privately owned prison.” Just like a Home Depot makes money bringing household goods and construction supplies to the public market, privately owned prisons earn a profit housing prisoners. Although federal, state and county prisons still exist; the privately owned corrections sector is growing at an alarming rate imprisoning roughly 10-15% of US inmates. The Corrections Corporation of America, the largest of the privately owned prison companies had a successful 1st quarter in 2006 with $21.3 million in profit. And that was in 2006! This is becoming a billion dollar industry in today’s market. The Economic gain from keeping people in chains and having them work for essentially nothing…. Sound familiar? We are still in the beginning stages of research (my apologies for the outdated fiscal statistics) but I have compiled a simple list of pros and cons for privately owned prisons that we will be diving into more in the coming week. Pros: · Less bureaucracy (minimal red tape since it is not a government agency) · Build prisons quicker and cheaper · Cheaper staff · Ability to test new incarceration philosophies (again, without the red tape) · Less liability in suits brought by prisoners and prison staff. In theory it should be a less expensive method of punishing criminals but that is a shaky claim. Cons: · Potential to profit from incarceration (major conflict of interest) · Minimum occupancy clauses: in each contract these private corporations signs with the state they have it legally stated that the prison must be stocked to a certain percentage at all time. This number usually ranges between 80-90%. · Less competent staffers with less training. · Possible unconstitutionality of delegating prisons to private entities. Just so I can provide some research that is relevant for the class, what questions do you guys have about privately operated prisons? By Erinn Klein
“Paul Butler writes that released felons are just as dangerous if not more so than before they were sentenced. Why? Because, he argues, prisoners do not get reformed, and it's not because they can't be rehabilitated, but rather because prison is a correctional facility in name only” (Esperian). Recidivism is a serious problem among the American prison population. Recidivism is the act of returning to prison after being released, and the numbers are staggering. At a rate of 70% for the general population (Esperian), it’s almost no wonder that America boasts one of the most abundant prison populations in the world. There is something badly flawed in the lack of help that persons in prisons are receiving in their attempt to readjust to civilized society after their arrests. The key question, though, is this: Are we not helping prisoners enough, or are they simply not taking advantage of the help that is offered? Rehabilitory ‘help’ can be defined as classes taken to earn a GED, AA degree, or even college degree, or they can be any assortment of job and skill training programs. This is in addition to varying drug rehabilitation programs, though these tend to be more limited. The fact of the matter is, seven out of every ten prisoners released from prison end up right back in there. The number drops to just six percent (Esperian) for those rare prisoners who manage to earn a college degree while they’re incarcerated. But for the rest of the inmates, for whom a college degree may be a somewhat lofty goal, it can be assumed that some amount of skill is needed in order to be employed upon release. Prisoners need a job on the outside in order to avoid returning to prison, and many people blame the lack of training programs for the widespread recidivism rate. I’ll be exploring this topic further, as I wonder what programs are being offered in general, and whether they’re ineffective or underutilized. No matter what, we as a country need to do a “better job of planning for the reentry of prisoners who have finished their sentences” (Atwan, America Now) if we want to avoid more crimes being committed. Prisoners are released from correctional facilities every day, and we need to be ready for them when they come. Hi, English 101 12 pm class. My name is Annica Balentine and I am from Boise, Idaho. Although I know someone who used to work at a county jail, that is the extent of my experience with the prison system so I will be learning quite a bit during these next six weeks, as I hope you all will too. I personally believe that a bit of background on a subject can be very helpful, particularly when the subject under scrutiny is such a complex one, like the United States’ prison population.
According to http://www.afsc.org/story/growing-problems-prison-system , two million Americans are currently incarcerated and a total of 7.2 million Americans are serving out their sentences in other ways, such as parole and probation. Or, if you want to look at these statistics in a different way, they translate to 502 inmates per every 100,000 US residents. This is a 261 percent increase since 1980, when the number of inmates was 139 out of every 100,000 US residents. Before the 1970s, the number of inmates per 100,000 people stayed around 110, but beginning in the 1970s, many economic and political issues led to this enormous increase in the number of people incarcerated. Retaliation against the successful civil rights movements was just one of the many was just one of the many factors that led to the new age of mass incarceration. Incarceration became the automatic and only policy for dealing with offenders, which ended up impacting uneducated, low skilled young men, particularly of the African American race. This sad reality has certainly not improved over the years. In fact, as of 2009, for every one white person who goes to prison, six African Americans go to prison. However, the racial bias is just one negative aspect of the prison system. Other issues include the war on drugs and the private ownership of the prisons themselves. More research on those topics is on the way! |