Imagine being thrown into a 4 by 8 foot room with only a 4 by 4 inch cell window to look out of. This window only allows you to see into the cell across the hall. You have a bed frame made of iron with a mattress that is as thick as a notebook. You are given a mini tooth brush, tooth paste, sheets, and a super thin blanket to keep you warm in the freezing cold cell. There is a toilet without a toilet seat, a faucet, and a mirror made of what looks like aluminum foil. The floor is rock solid cement that is always cold. You lie in your bed in an orange jumpsuit and velcro shoes smelling the stale air with a florescent light on you that never turns off. You can hear the yelling, screaming, and crying of other people in the cells next to you. There are no clocks to tell the time of day. You must measure the time by the meals you receive 5:30 AM, 1PM, and 7PM. All you can do when you sit in this room is think. You think about how you got there. How this isn’t really who you are and how you are going to change. What are you going to do when you get out of there? These were all words from my friend Matthew who had been in the DuPage County jail for 5 months.
Put yourself in Matt’s position, what would you have done? Some people are put into prisons and out of society for ten years then expected to fit perfectly and succeed in life when they are released from prison. This is not a realistic standard to be holding for ex-convicts. People today just dust prisons and prisoners under the rug and don’t care or really think about these people who are still part of society. No one thinks about these people until they know someone who is in jail, therefore, awareness needs to be raised and action needs to be taken. We need to recognize prisoners as part of society and make sure they are given necessary rights. There is a really high recidivism rate with these people and so we need to get to the bottom of this problem. If we start helping people who are breaking the laws and give them a chance to succeed in society then they are more likely not to end up in jail again. There needs to be an increase of educational programs offered in jails and prisons across the United States.
Since the beginning of time there has been a system of punishment for people who do wrong. The book Prisons Houses of Darkness, a collection of different information about prisons through the years, states how England sent “an estimated fifty thousand convicts” to American colonies starting in 1618 to “assume the status of indentured servants rather than convicts” (Orland, 1975, p.18). Singer, in his 2002 article Prison, states that this transporting of convicts was “a practice that continued for some 200 years.” The Americans took on the English system for punishment which first involved prisons being held in jail until they were tried in court. As a punishment they would be killed or tortured. In the very late 1700s early 1800s being sentenced to jail as a punishment was becoming more known.
As prison sentence became punishment for most people the prisons started to pop up all over. Depending on the part of the US you lived would change the set up of the prison. For example, at the Eastern Penitentiary of Philadelphia, Cherry Hill, the prisons were “8 by 15 and 12 feet high… each was provided with an individual exercise yard, likewise securely walled about” (Orlando, 1975, p.23). Singer (2002) notes, “that Cherry Hill was based on solitary confinement for convicts by day and night.” While the Auburn State Prison in New York the cell was not so big, “measuring only 7 feet long and 3 feet 6 inches wide” (Orlando, 1975, p.25). Singer (2002) also said, “in Auburn State Prison prisoners worked together in total silence during the day, but were housed separately at night.” Throughout the years these standards changed throughout the country depending on where the prison was located. Today in the Florida Department of Corrections says, “cells range in size form 7 feet wide to 10 feet 8 inches or 14 feet long” (Secure). With many different reforms throughout the years and different ideas of how to rehabilitate people these ideas of prison standards change.
Prisoners are suppose to become better people when locked like an animal in a 7 by 10 feet long cell where they are not allowed to talk to anyone. Do you think this would really help you? Singer (2002) says, “American prison systems rapidly remembrance the idea of rehabilitation as the principal goal of incarceration.” These people are suppose to come into prisons as criminals and leave a normal functioning people who would never think about crime. The Shawshank Redemption is a great movie to watch to get one inside look on prisons and the system. Big Red, who is an inmate at the prison, while going in for a review is asked by the parole man if he is sorry for what he did. Red replies that he regrets what he does and wishes he could go back and talk to the kid that committed the crime, “but I cant. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitatted? It’s just a bullshit word.” This goes to show that being locked in these cells walls aren’t doing anything good for the people.
There are only a few select things that these people that are locked in these cells are able to do. For example, in DuPage County jails, inmates are able to receive their G.E.D. if they fit certain standards. Also there are substance abuse and chaplaincy, programs that help the spiritual needs of the inmates. The problem is that, “these programs are funded by the inmates with no cost ot taxpayers”(Corrections/Jails). This causes the inmates to not have a lot of funding to take advantage of these programs. A lot of the funding for these programs has been cut. O’Hear in his December 2007 journal, The Second Chance Act and the Future of Reentry Reform, states how the inmate participation in recent years have been declining “in each case to about one inmate in three” because budgets have been cut. As these budgets have been cut the demand for participation in these drug treatment, educationm and vocation programs have been “maybe twice that level” that are able to participate (O’Hear, 2007, p.80). This shows that there are obvious problems with the funding for these programs in the prison systems.
There are obvious statistics and examples of how these programs and classes have actually worked. In Mexico, “Corrections Corp. of America has been running schools for the 5,000 plus Mexican nationals incarcerated at the private prisons in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas” (Grow, 2006). The Mexican government provides these people with the necessary equipment to teach these inmates the information that they would learn in Mexico’s public education system. It has been noted that “3,700 inmates have graduated from CCA elementary, junior high, and general equivalency diploma programs” (Grow, 2006). When Mexico’s government saw the improvement they started to expand the program. Hendricks, Kauffman, and Hendricks all did a study of some informations that they gathered and say the effects of prison education on the recidivism rates. For example, they looked at Utah’s Project Horizon which is a program made to help inmates prepare for release and finding jobs.
“ The project's nine-point plan includes inmate assessment, multi-agency collaboration, family involvement and support, research and evaluation, post-release tracking and support, job placement, career skills, basic literacy skills and cognitive problem solving skills. Horizon parolees recidivated 18-20% less than non-participants and found post-release jobs which they consistently tended to keep 89% of the time” (Hendricks, 10).
This might not seem like a huge amount of people, but in the reality this is a lot less people in the criminal system. This then will help lower the need for prisons and jails and help drop the rate of crime.
Putting all these things together shows that we need to expand these prisons and their educational systems. Statesville Prison in Joliet, IL has been running for 82 years as a maximum security prison and Govenor Rod Blagojevich is trying to shut it down. Senator Wilhelmi says, “We can’t recapitalize the money that is already spent. The closing would impact 406 employees... meanings 1,000 people, if you include the families, churchs, and schools” (Erwin, 2008, p.2). If Statesville closes then many people are going to lose their jobs and ruin the town Crest Hill. Many people fill it is them and and their visits that also help rehibilitate the people of Statesville. Joel Hood and Lolly Bowean quote Raph Portwood, a Stateville correctional officer, in their Chicago Tribune article, Plan to shut prison wing draws fire in Will County, about this issue. Portwood said, "It's disappointing and sad that they would want to close this place, which is the closest facility to the Chicago region. With the shortage of maximum-security beds, I don't understand how they can close us” (Bowean, 2008). This just goes to show that something needs to be done with the over crowding of these prisons. It is obvious that closing Statesville is not a step they should be taking. The Government should be investing in programs to keep these people out of the prisons so that the prison population should go down.
If we are going to decided to keep prisoners locked up like animals to rehabilitate them then it is time that we do something to help better them. It is obvious when looking at statistics that locking up these criminals is not going to stop them from recommitting these crimes. We should be investing more money into the systems to help better these people so they are ready and productive when they are released. If these people are actually rehabilitated while in jail or prison then the chances of them returning are slim and will help the crime rate and prison population decrease. This will in turn make the world a safer and happier place.
References
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Corrections/Jail. (n.d.). Dupage County Sheriff's Office. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from http://www.dupageco.org/sheriff/
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Grow, B. (2006, October 30). Inmate Ed - - With a Bus Ticket. Business Week, 4007, 14.
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Marvin, N. (Producer), Darabont, F., & King, S. (Writers), & Darabont, F. (Director). (1994). The Shawshank Redemption [Motion picture]. USA: Columbia Pictures.
O'Hear, M. M. (2007, December). The Second Chance Act and the Future of Reentry Reform. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 20(2), 75-83.
Orland, L. (1975). Prisons Houses of Darkness. New York: The Free Press.
Secure Cell. (n.d.). Florida Department of Corrections. Retrieved April 8, 2008, from
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Singer, R. G. (2006). Prison. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia database: http://www.history.com/ encyclopedia.do?vendorId=FWNE.fw..pr135800.a#FWNE.fw..pr135800.a
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