Two Plus Two Older Archives - The US Prison System

Here is what happens when you go to prison:

If you are awaiting trial or recently sentenced then you are new and don't know anybody. You dont have any useful skills and do not have any of the important jobs that allow you smuggling and trade.
The other prisoners will immediately judge you by the crime you commited (whether it was violent or non-violent). They are hardened and veterens of this sort of hell hole.

If you are young or attractive, then you are the closest thing to a women inside of the prison. So you will be approached by many who will offer you material possesions or protection in exchange for you to be their wife. If you refuse to be someone's wife you will basically have to fight them off. Of course in the movies, Hero just gets in a fist fight and its over. More realistic in Prison is that you'd have to stab someone or kill them for everyone to get off your back, even then if you make enemies with a Prison Gang, then gang rape is a strong possibility.

When you sign up with a prison gang, you can never leave and have to do anything they say. those are the rules.

prison gangs control the prison, not the guards. the guards mostly make sure that no one escapes. they are out numbered and prisoners run the prison basically (the kitcheen and other jobs). The prison gang leaders control these jobs and the prison's commerce and economy. In exchange for this power, they keep the prison under control. If the prisoners are busy fighting eachother, then they arent fighting with the guards.

Now, how is it possible for this enviorment to reform a prisoner. Their experiences inside will not inspire them to be a better model citizen. They will not learn anything but deep hatred.

Human beings need to be free. When you imprison someone, it can never make them more emotionally or mentally healthier in the long term.

Seperating men from the opposite sex is not a healthy enviroment.

The only time someone should go to this type of enviroment is when they are going without parole, when the state has decided that they are not rehabilitatable.

There are striking similarities between boot camp and prison. Except boot camp aims to build confidence and create unity, while prison aims to destroy confidence and create disunity. Unity among prisoners is not good for guards. Because these men are prisoners, basically slaves.

When someone commits a non-violent crime, what have they dont wrong against society except financial damage? If someone owes society in money, then they should not be subjected to this type of enviroment which will turn them violent.

There needs to be some sort of system specifically for non-violent offenders that allows them to pay-back society, while at the sametime reforming them.

People who say "they did the crime, they do the time" need to realize the correlation between poverty and crime. Someone lives in the ghetto and doesnt have a strong family. They rob a store. They go to jail. GAME OVER.

Seriously, its over for them. What kind of job will they get on the outside? How will their time in prison effect them? If the fathered a baby before going to jail, will he live a similar path?

There isnt too much talk about prison reform because it mostly effects poor people, who are of course the most likely to commit a crime.

And of course there are drug related crimes. Why do people sell drugs? To make money? Do they deserve to be put into this type of enviroment. Is society better off putting them into this type of enviroment? Right now, it is easier to just throw someone away then to deal with the reason why they are selling drugs.