Prison
is not a pleasent place to be. It is not supposed to be?
How bad should it be?
The punishment should fit the crime.
The loss of freedom is very hard to deal with. The
prisoners' have lost control of their lives.
They are
exposed to the dangers of predators who will try to control them,
rape them, beat them or kill them. These predators may not just
be the other inmates but may be guards as well.
If they get
sick they may not be treated for their illness. Hepatitius C is
a very big danger in prison and if the inmate has it he may not
be treated for it. If an inmate get AIDS, cancer oar any
other desease they may find that no one cares and they may not get
treated. If they are stabbed or beaten they may not
receive the proper treatment. If they become handicapped they
may not receive the needed equipment to help them get around out
function. The Doctors may not even be licensed and many are
quacks or just do not give a damn. The nurses can be equally as
bad. In some cases the people who are the best caregivers are
the prisoners who work in the medical areas.
Depending on the
security level the prisoners may end up spending 23 hours a day in
their cells. One man told me that security is so tight in the
new prison he is in that they do not even have rats or cockroaches.
I spent 72 hours in a police station lock up. I was in
a 6 X 6 one man cell with a toilet and sink in the open and a
concrete bench to sleep on with no bedding. One wall was
bars and the others were concrete. All I could see out of the
bars was another wall and the guards as they passed. When I sat
on the pot the female guards would walk by and see me on my thrown.
I had 3 balogna sandwiches for food in the whole time. I
had to drink water from the sink in my cell (nothing else to drink).
When I got to the bull pen at the court house a guy told me he
had a rat come into his cell. I said, "At least you had
someone to talk to."
I was looking at the possibilty of 2
to 4 years in prison. (I was lucky and got diversion. 1
year similar to probation and the record expunged.) I spent a
week in a 10 man cell in County jail. That was not bad because
the other inmates and I enjoyed each others company. There the
toilet was in the open along with a shower.
I was so
happy when I found out I did not have to go to prison.
You
have seen movies about prison. Many show how bad it is or
do they? It is worse and it is getting worse as time goes buy.
OZ on HBO was pretty close, maybe, but it is worse than that.
There are different security levels. Minimum
security may not be too bad but you still do not have freedom. Super
max is a warehouse of society's rejects. Supposedly the
security level is based on how dangerous the prisoner is but in some
cases it is based on how "good " the prisoner is. What do I
mean when I say "good"? If you piss off the guards
you are not "good". If you complain about your
treatment or the treatment of others you may end up going
up a security level or two.
Here is what I think the system
should do. I admit that most don't give a rats ass what I say
but this is my site so I can say what I want. If you read this
far thaen you probably care what I say.
First of all we have
to do something about the corruption in prison. We have to
catch the guards that help the prison drug dealers operate,
look the other way when prisoners are beaten and murder and the ones
that beat and murder the prisoners. There are probably enough of them
to send all of them to a prison for bad guards, wardens, cops and
other prison officials so that they stay alive and suffer.
We
have to rehabilitate the prisoners. Most are going to get out
someday. There must be training for jobs that the prisoners
will be able to get when they get out of prison. Education is
important too. They can have GED classes, correspondence
courses and computer courses. Let them get a college education.
Some will say we are being too nice to them. What about
making society safe when they get out?
We need medical care
with real doctors and nurses not the rejects of the outside world.
We need doctors and nurses that will actually treat the
prisoners and give them the needed medication and apparatus for the
handicapped.
We need to separate the bad guys from the good
guys? Instead of using security levels for punishment and
getting even use them to separate the prisoners by degree of danger
to other prisoners. Have support groups for those wo need them.
Not only for drug abusers but for those who can not cope with
society.
We need mental health care also. Many of
those in prison should be in mental health care facilities instead of
prison. Or state officials in their infinite stupidity have
released people on society who can not function in society. Every
day I see people on the streets who are mentally ill and can not
function in society but our leaders say that if they are not a
danger to themselves or others they shall be set free. They can
not get a job because they can not concentrate on their job function.
Some can not even beg for survival because they can not
communicate with others. I see them talking to themselves.
Many are talking to imaginary people. Some are fighting
imaginary people. Some direct traffic. I saw a man
beating up a telephone pole. Some of these people end up in
prison because it is cheaper to warehouse them that it is to treat
their illness.
Separate the predators from their prey. You
have some inmates that are trouble and others who are not. Try
to separate the ones that are trouble from those that are not.
One
problem we have is that when a person goes to prison the meet others
who were in the field that they were in. A car thief goes to
prison and learns from other car thieves. He learns from the
mistakes of others. When he is released, if we have not trained
him in a field that he could earn money, he will be better at his
craft of stealing cars. He will be able to strip a car faster.
He will also get caught again, go back to prison, learn more and come
out as a better thief.
Another problem we have when people get
out of prison they find that they can not function without being told
what to do. They have a hard time making decisions because in prison
the decisions were made for them. This is especially true when
they were in there for many years. They come out to a world
that is nothing like the world they were in before coming to prison.
If they have survived 20 years in prison and go into the free
world without a support system they will probably commit a
crime to get back in prison because they will not be able to cope
with freedom.
We have to prepare prisoners for their return to
society. Many will need halfway houses to help them in their
transition to society and freedom.
Many people say that the
criminal should go to prison and live a life of hell. No
rehabilitation but revenge by society. They fight spending
money on rehabilitation and they fight helping the inmates improve
themselves. They say we should not spend the money on them.
What is the cost we pay when they are let out worse people than they
were when the went in? It costs lives of people who would have
had longer lives if they were not murdered by an ex-con who was made
worse by prison. If he would have been rehabilitated the victim
may not have died. The victim was a victim of those who
prevent the prisons from rehabilitation. A victim of the Injustice
System.
© Copyright 2002 Lee W. Gaylord