This week my Criminology class had a visit scheduled to a nearby prison. The latest books we had read for the class were "NewJack" by Ted Conover and "Orange Is The New Black" by Piper Kerman. "NewJack" is about Ted Conover’s experience as a correctional officer in a maximum security prison — Sing Sing in New York. Whereas "Orange Is The New Black" gives an inmate’s perspective (Piper Kerman) of life in an all-women’s minimum security prison — Danbury, Connecticut.
Upon entering the prison, I felt myself starting to sweat — one, because it was hot, and two, I was nervous. I had never been in a prison or jail before and had an idea of what to expect from the books our class read but the prison stereotypes from the entertainment industry was what filled my mind instead.
The whole experience, in general, was uncomfortable. One reason being that it didn’t seem natural. As we were given a tour of the prison I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious of being a “privileged white college girl” who was there to essentially “observe the animals in their cages.”
We were told not to acknowledge or make eye contact with the inmates which was very much against my human nature. These men may have done wrong, but they were still men and I couldn’t help but feel that we were dehumanizing them.
I had a deep sorrow for the inmates being locked up with their loss of freedom and strict schedules. However, I had to remind myself that wrong actions have consequences and for the safety of our public citizens, inmates of violent crimes needed to be punished in some respect.
In "NewJack," Ted Conover says, “Though the rate of violent crime in the country is down 20 percent since 1991, the number of people in prison or jail has risen by 50 percent. [...] Studies have shown that most of the new inmates swelling the system are nonviolent drug offenders subject to mandatory sentencing laws” (Conover p.232).
In "Orange is the New Black," Kerman writes, “The United States has the biggest prison population in the world — we incarcerate 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, though we are only 5 percent of the world’s population. [...] in 1980 we had about 500,000 Americans in prison; now we have more than 2.3 million people locked up” (Kerman p.299).
I am definitely frustrated with our prison system incarceration numbers and realized that just because a kid gets busted for selling drugs and goes to prison; it doesn’t stop another kid from taking his place. As long as drugs are in demand, people will be continuing to sell.
To kill a snake you have to go for the head. We should be taking out top guys in charge of the drug cartels while simultaneously warning our youth more about the dangers of drugs so we create a “clean” generation who can keep the next generation “clean.”
For the prison that our class visited, it was classified as medium security and the woman giving us the tour told us that the majority of inmates in the facility were incarcerated for drugs or sexual offenses. Selling drugs should definitely have consequences, but incarcerating tons of people for this nonviolent crime is hurting our nation.
Next I want to address the issue of prisons and rehabilitation. Piper Kerman writes, “The public expects sentences to be punitive but also rehabilitative; however, what we expect and what we get from our prisons are very different things. The lesson that our prison system teaches its residents is how to survive as a prisoner, not as a citizen - not a very constructive body of knowledge for us or the communities to which we return” (Kerman p.298).
In addition to our prison tour we also got a panel with six of the inmates in which they told their stories and then we asked them questions. One of the things that struck me was the lack of proper preparation for when the inmates leave prison. One of the members on the panel mentioned how he had been incarcerated before the internet was a thing! He had heard of an iPhone and apps but had no idea what they were, or more importantly, how to use them.
With any job these days you need to have some kind of computer skills and no one is being taught any technology skills. Even the use of a debit or credit card is a basic everyday use which we don’t think about but for the inmate who leaves after his/her 30 plus years' time has been served; they won't know how things work. It is no wonder why an inmate might get frustrated with the outside world and resort back to selling drugs — it's the only skill they know how to use to make money and survive.
Likewise, in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption," an old man named Brooks is set free after a 50-year sentence. Once he is out he is surprised by cars moving fast everywhere. Then as he works at a grocery store he learns that the pace needed for bagging the items is too fast for his arthritis. So Brooks finds himself contemplating how to get sent back to Shawshank. Eventually the stress and scariness of the outside world is too much for the old man and he hangs himself.
My prison visit was pretty much what I expected and it was disappointing. It was disappointing to see the lack of human acknowledgment in the inmates and it was disappointing to know how many inmates we incarcerate every year without proper rehabilitation.
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” -Nelson Mandela
