The Prison System Needs Reform

Sterbenz, Christina. “Why Norway’s Prison System Is so Successful.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

The History of prisons goes through many eras. Many of these eras have a major impact on today’s prison system. The different was that the system worked and didn’t work really showed what was possibly and what should not be tried again. Each era tried to do something new are recreate something that had already been done by making changes to the way that they treated the inmates all the way to how they were housed and how much contact they had with one another. The different eras gave the present day prison system many great things to think about. Such as large capacity housing so you can properly use all the space in the prison and hold it to capacity. There is also the parole system that gives inmates a chance to work get out early and spend the rest of their sentence on the outside. These many great traits that the prison system today has all come from the hundreds of years of trial and error that occurred throughout the world.

It has been discovered from multiple sources that ever since ancient times, punishment was a necessary concept in order to prevent crime or wrongdoings. Ancient laws such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Mosaic Law (or Law given to Moses atop Mt. Sinai) use different methods to attempt to prevent or minimize the unavoidable occurrence of crime. Hammurabi’s Code using retribution (e.g. an eye for an eye), and the Mosaic Law using fear of God’s judgement. Neither of these have proven to be very effective. Since the dawn of human law, new laws have emerged. others have been forgotten, and many have been refined. Logically, it would be impossible to rid society of all actions that harm another person, which means the controllers of our societies (corrupt governments backed by mega-corporations) must concoct a way to keep society from descending into chaos, while still retaining their bloated wallets. The first prisons came about almost immediately after the first sets of laws. In Ancient Greece, “Imprisonment as a penalty was used initially for those who could not afford to pay their fines. Eventually, since impoverished Athenians could not pay their fines, leading to indefinite periods of imprisonment, time limits were set instead” (Allen). For some odd reason, society has still not evolved from using the Machiavellian method of instilling fear in order to prevent rebellious acts. Our supposedly ‘wise and responsible leaders’ actually believe that by using isolation and

She argues that the reforms suggested by the conservative party would cause unintended harm to the people they are attempting to help. The author forms her argument by analyzing the prison reforms initiative put forth by republican politicians. Bruenig concludes that these attempts to bring needed modification to the criminal justice system have not improved the lives of disadvantaged people. By focusing on cutting prison costs the author states, the conservative’s suggestion for reform will fail to provide support to community programs that help people stay out of prison. This would make the reform meaningless. It would also rid communities of prevention programs.

In any given year now, incarceration rates has tripled with approximately 13 million people introduced to American jails in any given year. This increase in the prison population far outpaced the crime rate and the US population growth. Today, America has around 5% of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prison population.

The Unites States of America’s prison system is a flawed mess. To open the eyes of our government we must first take a stand against unlawful government decisions, and show support for the greater good of society. What are our own tax-dollars paying for, what are the flaws in the justice/prison system, why is overcrowding in prisons causing tension, and what are ways our society and government can rebuild the system that has been destroyed over the years? Most criminals in prisons are not a danger to our society because they commit crimes just to use jail as a shelter, causing the overcrowding of prisons and wasting away of what we really should be paying for.

In 2011, I spent time serving in prisons with a church organization who’s goal was to change the systemic problems within the prison system. This caused me to examine all aspects of inequality and oppression that disproportionately affects people of color.

In the world of art, it has influenced religion in many ways. Art and religion has gone throughout for thousands of years. In this world, almost every religion glorifies, protests, idealizes, and tells the stories of religion. Art has become a form of propaganda. It has become a way to convey a message and emotion providing the art meaning. A way art has become influenced in religion is by making statues of Jesus on the cross and have been painted for centuries to portray the sufferings of Christ. The crucifixion, portrayed by Matthias Grunewald in 1515, has been the fundamental symbol of the Christian religion, recalling the crucifixion of Jesus. On the cross, Jesus Christ is crowned and vested as a king, and the marks of his suffering are much less prominent. In The Catholic Faith Handbook For Youth, the author, Brian Singer states, “The crucifix, It is a symbol of paradox: new life comes through death”( Singer 394). In Christianity, Christians believe Jesus died in order to save the world’s sins. And if individuals want eternal life with God, then one must dump sin. It symbolizes Jesus passion for all humanity and death.

Prison reform is an issue that has been a concern for a long period of time. The problems that Angela Davis brings up throughout her book are only some of the problems with the prison system. Whether it be the influence of corporations on prisons and legislators, the role that racism plays, or the safety of the prisoners. Her solution to these problems is the abolition of jails and prisons by creating policies that will reduce the number of people sent to prison. This would destroy the prison system as the main concept of punishment. The ways that she aims to do this is by providing physical and mental care to everybody, demilitarize schools, and change the justice system to one based around reconciliation rather than retribution. I find myself to agree with many of the concerns that she lists and believe her argument to be somewhat convincing. However, I do not believe that a complete abolition of prisons is what is necessary to fix the prison system. This paper will explore the concerns that she voices in her argument, how convincing I find them, and what I believe to be the flaws in her conclusion.

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

In this world we live in many feel that prisons exist to punish, not counsel, offenders. That may be true that Prisons exist for punishment, but they also have an important contribution to make to reducing re-offending by engaging prisoners in rehabilitation programs and purposeful work. Society is flawed in its thinking that by putting criminals in a place away from society we would be better off. To make it worse I am sure that more that 60 percent of Americans are against social reform because they have made up their mind that once a crook, always a crook. This is flawed mainly because it seems to assume that showing people that what they've done is wrong will always accomplish something, that punishing those who commit crimes

In America, crime rates are going up and prisoners are being released from prison with a wrong sense of direction resulting in their finding themselves back behind bars within a short period of time after being released for an action that could have been prevented if the proper precautions had been taken. Prisons need to put forth the effort to resolve these issues and make America’s streets secure again. The criminal justice system in prisons is a rising concern in this country that is affecting many and it is time it was improved by reforming the inside of prisons, providing prisoners with more when released, and keeping them under surveillance after release to help ensure they will not return to prison, thus keeping crime at a lower rate.

Prison reform is a significant issue that the United States government should enforce. It would aid in creating a more organized system of incarceration. Prison reform is an attempt to improve, change, or eliminate certain conditions in prisons. It is believed that it should be enforced due to the cases of overcrowding, lack of proper education, and the lack of rehabilitation that could inform prisoners of societal values. Prison reform would increase the self-esteem that was diminished in the prisoner’s personal history. Prison reform is significantly important as it will heighten the amount of self-worth in the prisoner and cause a decrease in the population of prisoners who return to a life of crime. Recidivism, or chance of recommitting a crime, will therefore be reduced. Prisoner who are released will not have all the negative ideals or influence from the prison that is usually spread until their release. Prison reform will help society if the increase in education and decrease in overcrowding is ensued upon the prison system with this policy.

Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.

Like Angela Davis, I believe that the prison system needs to be abolished. The prison system which is a significant part of punishment is incompetent and deeply flawed in the United States. Prison system reform needs immediate attention while abolition permanently will require time. Nietzsche’s theory of punishment explains how punishment come about in society and Davis’s critique of the prison system helps back my argument that the prison system needs to be abolished.