Existentialism: Serving A Life Sentence In Federal Prison

It becomes hard to theorize a reality without prisons when society has reproduced dominant narratives around the functions of imprisonment, however it starts with critical resistance from the root of the problem, which links to the legacies of colonialism.

The rights of a prisoner to read, write, speak, practice their religion, and communicate with the outside world are often cut far outside what is necessary for established security. This also leads to prisoners to stop communicating with the outside world and family.

Even though prisoners are incarcerated, they still are entitled to certain rights. There is a lot of debate about which rights prisoners should have because they can’t have too much freedom, and they also can’t have too little freedom. If inmates have much freedom, chaos would reign over the facility. No inmate would learn to truly change their ways and fit back into the community successfully. If too little freedom is given, inmates would be neglected and treated like animals. The perfect balance is needed to achieve a functional correctional facility.

Although inmates may not have full Constitutional rights while incarcerated, they are entitled to basic human rights, freedom and dignity. U.S. penal systems have been reformed at the beginning of the 1960’s. The reason for this reformation is to prevent inhumane treatment, provide inmates with religious freedom, and due process (Smith, 2010). The U.S. Supreme Court

Lee Tergeson, actor from the television show OZ said, “I know what it is like to be ignored, and I think that is the big problem about the prison system: These people are being thrown away. There is no sense of rehabilitation. In some places, they are trying to do things. But, in most cases, it is a holding cell.” (Tergeson, 2002) He speaks the truth.

     Capital punishment should be viewed as the stripping away of humanity from a person. The death penalty itself should be "executed" because of racial inequities, the concept of murder, the possibility of error, lack of deterrence, the cost, and an overwhelmed legal system. "The goal of capital punishment is revenge" (Introduction 1). Capital punishment is simply an outlet for the bloodlust of the American people (Introduction 1).

This research is based on several journal articles, online databases, and textbooks. The information extracted from these sources of content is used for the analysis of this study. Furthermore, the information gathered from this research is specifically used to focus on the difficulties that juveniles face when sentenced to life without parole. Instead of having the opportunity to serve their sentence through probation or parole, some juveniles are sentenced to face irreversible damages. Thus, it is imperative to understand that there are programs through community corrections that benefit juveniles far more than life without parole. The information gathered provides society with a better understanding of the sanctions in the Juvenile Justice

Freedom and confinement is the third most important theme in the movie, the Shawshank Redemption. There are many aspects of the inmates talking about what freedom is like, and how they are confined to Shawshank prison for a long time. In Shawshank they quite literally cannot do anything they want, they have to ask for everything. This can be no better seen than when Captain Byron Hadley said, “You eat when we say you eat! You s*** when we say you s***! You p*** when we say you p***!” Not only is this line of thought present in a fictional prison, but also in real life. There are TV shows out there that follow the cops of real life prisons, and real life prisoners do not have much more freedom. Then again, all things considered, prisoners have some freedoms, mainly in what they do during their yard times. The people who have it the worst, the one’s who have it like the quote, are the people who live under complete dictatorships. They cannot do anything, and I mean anything without the consent of

In today 's prison system of the United States, over 75% of the prisoners have the right to many luxuries while incarcerated instead of getting punished for the crimes committed. In fact, many inmates receive better health care than most people in the United States. Certainly, inmates have more luxuries than the citizens who work hard for them. With that in mind, inmates may consider jail better than the real world. No doubt inmates deserve treatment of an adult for the crimes they have committed. But also should get the punishment they deserve. In today 's world, inmates are not fully punished for the crimes committed.

Sartre proposes an interesting view on free will when he says, "either man is wholly determined or else man is wholly free." This quote shows us that Sartre believes that man is free to do what he wants. For Sartre, freedom is the most basic value, which renders possible all other values the way our fundamental plan precedes and grounds our small choices. In that sense freedom is the source of all values. It is not logically possible to make sense of human responsibility and notions of justice without a conception of free will. This is because it is free will that allows us as humans to choose and make the right decisions in life.

Prisons hide prisoners from society. “If an inmate population is shut in, the free community is shut out, and the vision of men held in custody is, in part, prevented from arising to prick the conscience of those who abide by the social rules” (Sykes, 1958, 8). The prison is an instrument of the state. However, the prison reacts and acts based on other groups in the free community. Some believe imprisonment

When the average person thinks of jails and prisons, they typically think of horrible criminals being locked up in order to protect the rest of society. They think justice has been served, and those who did the crime are now doing the time. But what goes on inside a prison, and inside the minds of the inmates? What about after those offenders have served their time, and are now being released back into the general public? People don’t really think about how prison affects a person’s mentality, or how incarceration impacts both relationships the inmate currently has, or ones that will develop in the future. Although it isn’t something most people think of first, incarceration is an experience that can have a negative psychological impact on a person for quite some time.

In succumbing to this type of detention, the individual becomes nothing more than a cog in the prison’s network of operations: a thing. Thus, what defines a legitimate existence is that of freedom.

According to Sartre, man is free to make his own choices, but is "condemned" to be free, because we did not create ourselves. Even though people are put on Earth without their consent, we must choose and act freely from every situation we are in. Everything we do is a result of being free because we have choice. The only choice we do not have is that of having choices. Not only are we condemned to be free because we did not choose to exist, but we are also condemned to be free because we are the only thing that exists that has to be responsible for all of our actions. However, how do we know that God doesn't have everything determined for us and just leads us to believe that we are free? The truth is that we don't know, and won't until we leave this earth. It is now up to us to decide if our freedom is to be valued, and to choose the way we want to use our freedom.

Although there are numerous definitions as to what freedom mean based upon individual perspectives. Freedom can be defined as _________________ People might be limited by some constraint so freewill may not be completely "free" but the thoughts about possibilities are unlimited and the way in which people get involved in such possibilities is not an aspect that can limit freewill. In Sartre essay titled Existentialism and Human emotion, he points out that from the moment we are brought into this world, we take on the role of responsibility for all of our actions. It makes me think about what the term “free” truly refers when people use it. There aren’t any external benefits that humans can base the way we live. Regardless of whether someone gives you a choice or not, you still have the ability to choose. That is the one and only innate ability any one person possesses. Sartre says, we must be accountable for our actions because it’s ours and no one else’s. I doubt that God would want us to choose to take responsibility over one action over another because we think it’s in our nature to do so. If life was all about handing over our responsibilities to God or to another, wouldn’t you think we would be a less motivated society, without intentions to