The Social Prospects Of Poverty

What once was used as a means of rehabilitation has now became a corrupted institution based upon the societal norms of the 21st century. In the novel, “Are Prisons Obsolete” by Angela Davis, she emphasizes the underlining problems faced within modern day prisons. More specifically on how the reformation of these prisons have ultimately backfired causing the number of imprisonments to sky rocket drastically. Which results in the concept of the prison system being a lot more harmful than helpful to the prison-based communities nationwide.

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

Prison is an important place, because it takes away the power from individuals. This means that the criminal is no longer acting upon his will, but that of the officers, judge, guards, etc. “They are the foundation of society, and an element in its equilibrium.” (215) All the techniques, when created, they “attained a level at which formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce the other.” (216)

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   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are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

Angela Y Davis is an anti abolitionist scholar who has radicalized academic work through her ability to frame counterculture as a way to challenge and transform the political,

The orthodoxy of mass incarceration has become imbedded in modern American culture. This American philosophy has permitted the construction of the most punitive carceral system in the world (Thompson 703). It remains that somewhere in the underpinnings of the United States, there live the elements required to generate and maintain it. Contemporary hyperpenality follows previous epochs in American history that gave rise to institutions such as slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow. Spectacles, such as the documentary 13th, have made attempts to represent the era of mass incarceration as yet another iteration of American violence weaponized by dehumanization. These endeavors to represent the penal system assume an immense amount of responsibility.

The prison is thought to be a permanent aspect of society, it is designed to incarcerate criminals to make way for a cleaner society. Because it is considered a necessity to keep societal order, many people find it hard to envision a life without it. A reason for this is the tainted reality that a lot of people have about it. The media gives us a false narrative on prison and its effect on women, black people, and other minorities. Angela Davis challenges this idea of the prison perpetuity in Are Prisons Obsolete? Davis argues that the bad history of the prison, prejudice in the system, and the gender structures in the prison does not benefit society; thus making prison abolishment worth considering.

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.

Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues

There have been countless works either supporting the prison system or denouncing it in its entirety. There can never be a definite theory or answer to this debate. However, it is important to analyse the notion and to understand why, despite arguments against it, the prison system has withstood the rigors of time, and

Poverty was originally inevitable as a result of world affairs, such as slavery, wars and battles for independence. After world affairs has settled, majority of countries recovered from their despair and hardship. Today, the worldwide rate of poverty has dropped dramatically except in sub-Saharan Africa. Jeffery D. Sachs has spent 25 years working in indigent countries of Africa in effort to understand the cause of their endeavors with extreme poverty. Sachs, then, provided an analysis of why extreme poverty exists in Africa and how well developed countries can contribute toward eradicating the complication.

The logic of poor peoples purchases as they attempt to meet a wealth image they cannot obtain is obscene. It is impossible to provide for their families and live a rich lifestyle under little earnings. Stated by Isabel Sawhill, “None of this means that providing lower-income families with more money is necessarily a bad thing” (Sawhill). The political system works in a matter to benefit poor families with money they do not earn. Poor individuals complain about being poor while it is quite simple to overcome poverty and rely on a career. Pursuing a career and presenting a humble attitude can help with overcoming poverty and presenting a better reputation. Poor individuals need to visualize more than spending money on unnecessary items, work to flip their money without relying on the government, and be themselves not a false image.

There are three main arguments believed to be the explanations for the existence and persistence of poverty. The first account is the Dependency-Based Explanation that puts the blame of poverty to the individual or to their cultural background. The Exclusion-Based Explanation and Structural-Based Explanation are the next two which establishes the society that condemns people to poverty.

When an individual is introduced to the prison life, after violating rules and laws, he or she must come to terms about the journey he or she are about to take behind bars in prison. No one can save them, or do their time for them, and a majority of their freedom has been stripped from them either temporarily or permanently. Prison life deals with all walks of life and is not discriminative toward any race. In this paper I will discuss my perspective on prison life, policies I would enforce an inmate’s need for respect, changes on correctional policy, and why people commit crimes.