Cell One Nnamabia Analysis

For new inmate, the bus ride to prison, the processing at the prison reception center, and the belittling shouts from the inmates are all part of the early stage of what is known as prisonization (Clear, Cole, Petrosino, Reisig, 2015). It is the process whereby newly institutionalized individual are introduced to and come to accept prison lifestyles and criminal values; the learning of convict values, attitudes, roles, and even language (prison argot) (Schamelleger, 2001). The new inmates gradually learn the set of rules of conduct that reflect the

After being incarcerated for a petty crime and sent to a chain-gang jail, Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) has risen up the ranks of the establishment and become the prisoners’ idol as well as the guard’s enemy. Jacksons’s contrasting relationship with the guards and the prisoners is an important

“What I Learned as a Kid in Jail” is a speech given at a TEDTalk convention to a group of young men and women delivered by Ismael Nazario, a prison reform advocate where he does work for The Fortune Society, a non profit organization. Nazario was arrested when he was just under eighteen for robbery and sent directly to Rikers Island where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, before ever being convicted of the crime. Nazario’s goal in delivering his speech to a group of younger men and women is to make them aware of the way correctional officers treat younger inmates and how inmates should be spending their time doing productive activities and understanding they do not have to go back to the life they were living. Nazario accomplished this goal by sharing personal stories from his past experiences.

This week’s reading focused on prisons. The Society of Captives was written by Gresham M. Sykes in 1958. He conducted a study on a maximum security prison in New Jersey. Chapter 1 focused on the prison and its settings. The author goes into detail about the size of the cells and what the prison actually looks like. He also writes about how the prisoner is no longer seen as man but as a number. My Sunday school teacher visits prisons to teach about the bible. He has commented to me that is exactly how certain correction officers see the prisoners. They are nothing but a number to some individuals. This can lower their self-image (Sykes, 1958).

In “Cell One” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the main character Nnamabia is immune to punishment due to his manly beauty. Even after he steals his mother’s jewelry and is arrested for an alleged murder, his actions are still overlooked by his parents. His sister, who narrates the story, never does anything wrong and lives in Nnamabia’s shadow. After being placed in Jail, Nnamabia’s father regrets that he was so easy on his child. Nnamabia’s mother favors him because of his looks and charm, but in the end, neither of these physical attributes keep him out of jail. Nnamabia’s mom wants to drive 2 hours every day just to see Namibia, but her love is so naive that she is still oblivious to his wrong doings. The guard at the prison tells Nnambia’s parents, “You cannot raise your children properly—all of you people who feel important because you work at the university—and when your children misbehave you think they should not be punished. You are lucky they released him.” (Adichie) Even though Nnamabia is in Jail due to his corrupt associates, but he begins to see how his negative actions could affect his parents. Initially he thought he was smart while in prison, almost untouchable, but that changes when the old father of a fugitive is jailed simply because nobody could find his criminal son. Over time, Nnambia begins to speak less and less with his parent’s. Every day he is in the cell with the sick old man, and he begins to relate himself to this person’s son. After

Some parts of the book highlight the social issue with incarceration while the other part there are political discussions of possible solutions to try and fix such a corrupted society.

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

Ted Conover’s book, New Jack, is about the author's experiences as a rookie guard at Sing Sing prison, in New York, the most troubled maximum security prison. He comes to realize that being a correctional officer isn’t an easy task. This is shown from the beginning when he is required to attend a 7 week training program to become a correctional officer. He comes to realize what inmates have to endure on a daily basis. Throughout his experience into a harsh culture of prison and the exhausting and poor working conditions for officers, he begins to realize that the prison system brutalizes everyone connected to it. New Jack presents new ideas of prisons in the United States in the ways facilities, corrections officers, and inmates function with

This paper is about the book 'Behind a Convict's Eyes' by K.C. Cerceral. This book was written by a young man who enters prison on a life sentence and describes the world around him. Life in prison is a subculture of its own, this subculture has its own society, language and cast system. The book describes incidents that have happen in prison to inmates. With this paper I will attempt to explain the way of life in a prison from an inmate's view.

Hassine begins his narrative as he is entering prison but this time as an inmate. Prior to his incarceration, Hassine was an attorney (Hassine, 2011). Even then as an attorney, the high walls of prison intimated Hassine (Hassine, 2011). As Hassine was being processed into the system, he expressed how he systematically became hopeless from the very prison structure itself as well as because of the intimidation he felt by uniforms. Prisons of the past actually had a goal to aid individuals through rehabilitation by instilling new values in order to correct the wrongs that one may have committed during their lifetime but today this is no longer true. . Hassine draws colorful depictions of how dim and unfamiliar a prison can be in which instills fear in an individual soon as he or she

The Convicts, by Iain Lawrence, is a story of a young boy who faces great odds to complete his quest to help his father. This novel takes many twists and turns through the landscape of London, more specifically in nineteenth century London. However, London is not described in the picturesque view many people have come to know London as. Lawrence shows the uglier more rugged lifestyle of many poor people in London during this time period. Within a society like this in London, swindling, gangs, and prison become common subjects among the lower classes, especially in this novel. Although life was hard for many, the characters in this novel find adventure along the way while aboard ships and through underground sewers.

“The space inside Zeitoun and Todd’s cage was approximately fifteen by fifteen feet, and was empty but for a portable toilet without a door” (219). Using words like “cage” and “empty”, Eggers illustrates the terrible conditions in which the government kept Zeitoun, his friends, and other prisoners. The restrictive environment of Camp Greyhound and, later, solitary confinement, created a sense of hopelessness in Zeitoun, who was forced into this situation because officials assumed that he was a terrorist based on his race. The fact that Zeitoun was not even tried for a crime was a blatant disregard of his rights, and such abuses were only exacerbated when he was denied a phone call to his wife. Eggers, in an interview with related prison personnel, reveals the truth of the matter: “‘They should have gotten a phone call’”

When we do research on daily prison life, we come across two typical but less than ideal situations: either social imaginaries cloud our judgment or information provided by the prisons themselves hide certain weak or bad aspects that they do not want to make public. We can also find information on TV, but most of the time it either exaggerates or minimizes the facts. In order to obtain more reliable information, we have to have access to people who are working or have worked in this institution, and such will be the sources of this essay. We will be describing and giving examples of prison violence according to three types of violence: sexual, physical and psychological violence.

After being incarcerated for a petty crime and sent to a chain-gang jail, Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) has risen up the ranks of the establishment and become the prisoners’ idol as well as the guard’s enemy. Jacksons’s contrasting relationship with the guards and the prisoners is an important

Furthermore, in the city of Johannesburg, crimes that involve one race committing an illegal act against another are not uncommon. In fact, the inhabitants of the city do not even bat an eye when news comes about that a native has done something wrong yet again. However, it is not the fact that crimes are committed, but the corrupt judicial system that forms the sentences for the accused is extremely impartial. It does not matter if the accused is possibly innocent, if a black native stands before a judge, he is most certainly to be found guilty. Likewise, in the story, Kumalo's son, Absalom, is a prime example of this injustice. Bearing a firearm, Absalom breaks into a house with two other boys his age carrying blunt weapons with intentions