Survivability In Prisons

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

This paper explores the topic of mental health within prisons and how it affects the inmates. The report of my findings were through research of twelve articles, two credible website sources, and a published textbook.

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

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   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are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.

The author of Descent into Madness discusses how systems of criminal justice that engage in high levels of disorganization become nothing short of a breeding ground for discontentment among prison inmates. The other main point is that prison staff psychologically are hungry for power. This manifests in the myriad of ways that they treat the inmates in an effort to feel powerful through by retribution through their

In prisons today, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are all elements that provide a justice to society. Prisons effectively do their part in seeing that one if not more of these elements are met and successfully done. If it were not for these elements, than what would a prison be good for? It is highly debated upon whether or not these elements are done properly. It is a fact that these are and a fact that throughout the remainder of time these will be a successful part of prison life.

Prison culture or the “values, norms and attitudes that inmates form in terms of institutional survival” (Bartollas, 2013), can be described in one of three models. The Deprivation Model describes the inmate’s behavior as the product of the environment, more specifically the attempt to adapt to that which he is deprived of as a result of incarceration (Bartollas, 2013). An example of such would be the pseudo family unit or physical relationships that inmates form as a result of the absence of such relationships while incarcerated.

What the researchers found during this study was that both the behaviors and mentalities of guards and prisoners changed. Guards became more aggressive and prisoners became passive. A group of five prisoners had to actually be released from the study because of physical and emotional changes they were experiencing. Those prisoners remaining actually began acting as if they were truly incarcerated. By the behaviors they exhibited they had all but forgotten that they were free to leave at any time and not forfeit the money they had already earned. Guards, on the other hand, actually stayed at the prison longer than they were scheduled and were actually disappointed when the study came to a close while prisoners were very happy and expressed their luck at getting released early. These results clearly demonstrate that it is the environment that contributes to the behaviors observed. Those who were given the role of guard expressed the power and control they had over the prisoners. The prisoners began to become hopeless and bend to the power of the guards.

The United States currently has the highest number of prisoners in the world. According to Glaze and Herrmann (2013), approximately 6.9 million adults are under some form of correctional supervision in the United States. Crime in the United States is relatively equal to that of any other industrialized nation, so why does the United States house so many inmates irrespective of the fact that the nation cannot successfully manage a budget for the institution as well as manage the inmates? An inmate, Victor Hassine, provides insight as to what prisoners physically and mentally experience during incarceration as well as his ideas on the effects of prisons on inmates in his book, Life without Parole.

Rose Ricciardelli has written a book entitled Surviving Incarceration, which explores and reveals the various dynamics inside Canadian prisons. Essentially, it is a research done by the author, who incorporates a male sub-sample of Canadian federal prisons, while collecting data via 1-on-1 interviews with these inmates. Ricciardelli states early in the book that she will be focusing on prisoners and their experiences with federal prison; not on discussing why prisons exist or whether they are punitive or rehabilitative. Thus, although the title is misleading since Ricciardelli does not actually write about ‘surviving prison,’ she makes it clear early on for what readers can expect. Also, the author will look at the effectiveness of policy and legislation changes. With this in mind, one can assume that the title was simply for marketing purposes. Additionally, although Ricciardelli has set the focus on the Canadian prison system, she does not disclose further information or a history in this regard. For instance, throughout the readings, Ricciardelli does not provide statistics that would be curious to know in the minds of readers. This can include the statistical difference between federal and

According to the prisons inspectorate, the ‘health’ of a prison should be measured according to safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement (HMCIP, 2013). Choose one of these factors, and using academic research to support your argument, discuss to what extent this represents a critical element of imprisonment in contemporary society.

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.

Deaths in custody is a serious issue, with 109 deaths in 2016 within England and Wales alone, 33 of them have been classed as self-inflicted (INQUEST, 2016a). This shows the enormity of the problem of self-inflicted deaths within the prison environment, as rates of death are significantly higher in prison than in the general community (Crighton, 2006). It was found that within the general community females 4% of females and 14% of males had suicidal thoughts when compared to the prison population this significantly increased to 55% of females and 40% of males (Jenkins et al, 2005). This demonstrates the issue of thoughts of suicide within the prison walls. The number if deaths in custody show that prison is not a safe and legitimate place to

The “pains of imprisonment” can be divided into five main conditions that attack the inmate’s personality and his feeling of self-worth. The deprivations are as follows: The deprivation of liberty, of goods and services, of heterosexual relationships, autonomy and of security.

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.