Crimes in Prison the Modern

Crimes in Prison

The modern prison system exists for the intended purpose of preventing criminals from continuing to perform evil or destructive acts. The penal system is meant to bring justice by reducing crime, and ideally ending it all together. Those criminals who are a menace to society are to be removed from the population and put into an environment where they cannot continue to do any harm. Then, because the criminals have been removed from society, prison also prevents new crimes from taking place because of two wonderful side effects. For one, because the criminals have been removed from society, these negative influences have been taken out of the lives of impressionable youths and feeble-minded adults who might have otherwise been swayed to join in the wrongdoing ways of the previously free-roaming criminal. Secondly, an example will have been made of this criminal that crime does not pay, and the fear of punishment should be sufficient to prevent others from walking the dark path of the criminal. In the ideal prison system, punishment would be reserved for those who had earned it, and all decisions would be based on the overall best interests of all innocent parties. Ideally, prison would be a way to show criminals the error of their ways while protecting the rights of all parties involved.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal society. The smooth theories behind the structure of the penal system turn out, on closer inspection, to be quite flawed. One must examine the origins of the flaws in order to have hope of improving the system. One may first look at the motivations of the criminals for whom the prisons are built to contain. Every action is taken with the purpose (conscious or subconscious) of either receiving some sort of pleasure or gain, or of avoiding some kind of pain or loss. Crimes which are committed in order to experience pleasure, such as rape, are called Expressive Crimes. Those which are done in order to achieve gain, such as robbery, are known as Instrumental Crimes. (Haag 1994) Both of these types of crime are weighed, in the criminal's mind, against the risks involved -- the so-called cost of crime is the risk of punishment involved. The risks of being caught and sent to prison deter some, but most criminals know that the chances of being caught, convicted, and sentences heavily are actually very low per crime incident, and therefore continue with their illegal ways.

Perhaps it is the arrogance of the criminal-minded that keeps the prison system from being successful in iradicating undesirable behavior from society? Or perhaps it is the failure of the system for not catching enough of the criminals and keeping the price of crime low? Perhaps it is the luxury conditions of prisons which are seen flaunted disapprovingly throughout the media on a regular basis that actually make prison an attractive alternative to bothering with staying legal? Alternately, perhaps the problem is far more disturbing and frightening than any of these suggestions. Perhaps it is not the fault of the incarcerated individual that the vicious crime cycle continues.

The prison system itself may be the root cause of the continued cycle of delinquent behavior and out of control crime rates that plague America, or at least a perpetrator of this condition. The prison system is designed to dehumanize and demoralize the individuals who are within it, whether that be in the role of carrying billy clubs or being behind bars. Corruption is almost inevitable, it seems, based on the vast amounts of research and data collection that exist on this subject. Rather than curbing crime, it is suggested by many people that prisons are actually encouraging it. "Corrections officers and inmates alike have found themselves victimized by a system intent on housing criminals in huge, military style facilities, where incidents of rape, assault and battery, intimidation, and abuse of the mentally ill have become accepted daily occurrences." (Foley 2000) Theoretically, the prison system as it currently stands will never succeed in iradicating crime on the outside of the prison walls because it fosters crimes to continue within them.

In the prison system, according to many reports, inmates are trained to be criminals, not to become model citizens. Criminals are thrown into the penal system with the hope that time away from society will reform them, or at least keep them out of trouble. The reality is far from fulfilling this hope, however, and may be doing quite the opposite. The prison system appears to be training criminals and encouraging criminal behavior while in prison, as well as once released into society. Relatively minor offenses will get even the first-time offender sent into a hostile environment with hardened, serious criminals. Additionally, the dehumanizing way in which prisoners are treated by prison employees becomes a form of conditioning that encourages criminal-like responses and behavior patterns among those who might otherwise have learned from their mistakes and not returned to any sort of undesirable behavior. It is difficult to be the "model prisoner" many members of the population hope to create by sending delinquents into the prison system when all odds are stacked against the survival of a morally pure survival.

One concerned report of the California penal system reads, "We have thousands and thousands of prisoners who should be socializing, working jobs, going to school, and being rehabilitated. Instead, these people are spending months in isolation, and violence has been accepted as the common fare." (Foley 2000) the prison system is not taking steps to rehabilitate prisoners, only to punish them. Some would say this is quite fair, that once a person has committed a crime he has waived his right to be hand-fed assistance in the areas he falls short on his own, such as moral reformation. However, the system is not simply failing to provide rehabilitative services. The blame here is not due to simple inaction. Instead, action is specifically taken that corrupts prisoners. "Beating, raping, intimidating, enslaving and infantilizing people produces not caring, non-violent people, but angry, hostile, often violence-prone ones." (Brigade, 1990) This is the reality for inmates in the prison system

One of the first ways in which the corruption and failings of the penal system as a whole can be observed is through the crimes committed by inmates while serving time behind bars. Far from providing a crime-free zone where inmates can recover from the exposure to drugs, violence, and crime on the street, exposure to crimes within prison walls is a long-lived historical tradition, and in the direction the correctional system is headed, there is no sign of ending this tradition. Looking back to the nineteenth century prison system, one can see that problems among inmates that are rampant today are, in general, not new issues. "Charlestown prisoners labored assiduously at tasks of their own devising, tasks which, though illegitimate, nonetheless required both labor and skill. Such tasks often carried more attractive material incentives than the ones imposed in the prison workshops. They included the practice of purely criminal trades, similar to those for which they had been imprisoned, as well as legitimate trades, in some cases the very same trades they were meant to practice in the workshops, but done clandestinely and for their own private gain." (Goldsmith 1997) However, even in these early reports it can be seen that perhaps the prison system is being unfair in many ways to the prisoners. The "crimes" which the prisoners are accused of committing while imprisoned include activities that may be better described as altruistic than immoral. Shared self-teaching and education was rampant among the prisoners. Some of the reported education was in illegal trades, such as "counterfeiting bills and coin; teaching the art of picking pockets, and actually picking the pockets of strangers; preparing false keys and other instruments for breaking houses and stores." (Goldsmith 1997) Even these crimes may not have been unjustified, though, as the victims of these inmates were generally tourists who paid a fee to gawk at the menagerie behind bars. Punishment for committing crimes while in prison included loss of food rations, solitary confinement, bondage, and the use of a clog and chain. Yet, looking again at the crimes being committed by the inmates, one has to wonder what the underlying cause of the misbehavior might be. Food, blankets, shoes, clothing and other contraband items (which are necessary to fulfill one's most basic needs) were taken for personal use or distribution among other prisoners. Further evidence that the prisoners themselves cannot be historically blamed completely for such behavior behind bars is the well-known assistance of prison employees in criminal affairs within the prison. "In the acquisition of liquor more than any other activity, prisoners were aided by alliances with lower-ranking prison staff, and outsiders, particularly delivery men, whose business brought them into the prison....More serious, and more numerous, were the cases in which prison officers themselves supplied the prisoners with liquor." (Goldsmith 1997) Although these historical reports do not address the full spectrum of factors regarding crimes within the prison, they do establish a long history of corruption within the system that fosters crime.

A major concern regarding crime today that exists within prisons as well as on the streets is the formation of gangs. "Prison gangs are flourishing across the country. Organized, stealthy and deadly, they are reaching out from their cells to organize and control crime in America's streets.... prison disturbances soared by about 400% in the early nineties, which authorities say indicated that gangs were becoming more active... As much as 60% of the prison population belong to gangs." (Danitz 1998) Authorities say that many of the prison gang members were used to being gang members on the outside, but in other cases even authorities admit that many inmates are joining gangs for "survival" and "protection." Which returns to the previously mentioned dilemma. What are inmates needing protection from? Is time behind bars not supposed to be one that allows for contemplation about past mistakes in an atmosphere that allows for psychological healing? Prisoners need protection from the way in which the prison system functions, other inmates, and prison employees. "Protection remains an important factor. When a new inmate enters the prison system he is challenged to a fight...The outcome determines who can fight, who will be extorted for protection money and who will become a servant to other prisoners. Those who can't join a gang or afford to spend $5 a week in commissary items for protection are destined to be servants.... The environment is set up so that when you put that many people with antisocial behavior and criminal history together, someone is going to be the predator and someone the prey, and that is reality." (Danitz 1998) Prison gangs do also become involved in racketeering, black markets, drugs, and racism. Gangs in prisons are more low-key and better organized than street gangs, often because after street gang members are arrested, they realize their high-profile and careless attitude made them easier to catch. By imprisoning gang members, it teaches them to be smarter, slyer, more dangerous gangs, for only the fittest will survive the prison competition. Gang investigators claim that gang leaders pass secret messages to their packs through secret codes in letters and artwork. However, some prisoners' rights activists remark that the policies put into place to control these secret communications are simply attempts to censor prisoners unfairly. Prisons may also be using gang labeling of prisoners to get away with more severe punishments than normal prisoners get, "They isolate and place them in lockdown status to discourage membership." (Danitz 1998) Meanwhile, prisoners who join gangs while incarcerated but serve a short sentence will be able to serve the prison gang on the streets once released, gangs maintaining a "blood in, blood out" philosophy. It is also difficult to say how much crime can actually be attributed to gangs in prison. Rising crime rates are used as proof that gang activity is rising, but according to the leader of an infamous Chicago street gang, things are more logical than outsiders believe them to be. "The gangs have an understanding with each other. We talk to each other to ensure that we don't have a confrontation. We try to keep the static down." (Macko 1997)

Among the crimes for which gangs in prison are admittedly responsible are graffiti-tagging their cells, holding academic classes on the history and functionality of their gang, and convincing guards for some special privileges for gang members of not just their own gang, but all gangs held in the prison. Gang members are also responsible for sexual abuse of other inmates, but the sexual abuse situation in prisons can be linked to many factors, not gangs alone.

Finally, gang leaders will often have more "luxury" in their daily prison life than other inmates, procuring extra food, television, cell phones, and even butlers while behind bars. One gang leader's cell was raided, revealing that he had collected "a cellular telephone, four cellular phone batteries, 13 bottles of expensive designer cologne, a Casio mini-color television, a calculator, an electric iron, two hot pots and... A portable washing machine." (Macko 1997) All of these items are, of course, contraband, and a crime to possess. Other gang leaders will share such contraband. "In 1995, Stateville officials uncovered hundreds of pounds of food that was stolen by the members of the Gangster Disciples from the prison kitchen. The food included hamburger meat, huge rolls of sliced turkey, a large number of canned hams and boxes of frozen seafood. Big Lowe used the food to run a thriving cell-house restaurant." (Macko 1997) According to one inmate, "I've seen guys with 20 or 30 cheeseburgers walking up and down the gallery shouting. 'I've got cheeseburgers! I've got cheeseburgers!' or, 'Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!'" (Macko 1997) Other more serious charges against gangs in prison than contraband and cheeseburgers are riots, such as the one in Trenton in the past year. "During the riot, inmates allegedly attacked officers with makeshift weapons including padlocks swung inside of socks, broom handles and clothes irons." (Dopp 2005) Prison administrators there admit that the system is not designed to rehabilitate these people. "I'd love to tell you we create ex-gang members. That's not the case....Prisons and gangs go hand in hand." (Dopp 2005)

One of the most common contraband concerns among prisons is drugs. This is not surprising because a vast majority of inmates have been incarcerated for drugs-related charges. Drug use is rampant in prison. In British prisons, for example, "Glasgow in particular, has an injecting culture... 15% of those tested positive for opiates. This implies that 22-45% of inmates are using heroin inside the prison." (Gore & Bird, 1998) Similar studies show that American prisons are active drug houses. However, there is a lack of properly conducted studies regarding the condition of drug-use in prisons. What is known is that intravenous drugs, such as heroin, are a serious health risk due to blood-borne viruses such as HIV / AIDS. Due to the risks of needle use in particular, many concerned parties express that the obviously failing "war on drugs" method should be cast to the side in favor of programs that might actually have some positive results. "They should give priority to getting prisoners 'off injecting' before getting them 'off drugs' and to rehabilitation of inside users of opiates. Underestimating the numbers taking opiates through random mandatory drug testing risks serious under-resourcing of prisoners' health care. Moreover, the policy of random mandatory drug testing is not delivering reductions in opiate use. Worse...create a new market for heroin in prisons because heroin has a shorter half life than cannabis and thus is less likely to be detected by random testing." (Gore & Bird, 1998) the vast majority of methadone patients who become incarcerated do not have their prescriptions continued in prison, leading to further drug use instead of continued rehabilitation. Additionally, other factors put prisoners at high risk for contracting Hepatitis B or HIV / AIDS, and needle usage adds to that high risk.

Other drugs are a concern as well for prison authorities, as are any kind of contraband whatsoever. The presence of contraband material is considered to be a very severe crime in prison because it undermines the authority of the prison over the inmate. "People in society and correctional officers need to understand that immediate control over the prison system is often an illusion at any time....Contraband equals power." (Danitz 1998) Much of the concern with gangs is the amount of contraband electronics, supplies, food, and drugs which they contribute to prison society. Many prisons have outlawed cigarettes, as well as other drugs and alcohol, so cigarettes are a hot trade-goods item. "Texas should never have outlawed smoking in the prisons, adding cigarettes as trade-goods contraband to the prohibited list...you will see that the first thing that developed was a gang because someone had to control the contraband -- that is power." (Danitz 1998)

Gangs, drugs, contraband, and small crimes committed within prisons are cause for concern, but the degree of violence, related to these factors and many others, is truly disturbing. The group California Prison Focus says that the prison system "has promoted an atmosphere of violence and mistreatment." (Foley 2000) the California Department of Correction (CDC) is to blame for a lot of prisoner violence that takes place within the prison systems of that state. "Our system here is an aberration. California has the most violent prison system in the country...The CDC has said that they have created policies designed to reduce violence and abuse, when in fact they have chosen policies which encourage violence....The rate of violence is up, abuse of inmates is up, and prisoner on staff assaults are up." (Foley 2000) the overall occurrence of violence in all state prisons, including those between inmates and guards, as well as between inmates and inmates, has been rising steadily for the past decade. The CDC reports that California prisons had approximately 6,796 assault and battery incidents among inmates, staff, and visitors, in 1999. This is an alarmingly high rate, and many prisoners' rights groups think this is a conservative estimate and the numbers may be much higher. One violent incident that hit the news in recent years was at Pelican Bay State Prison in 2000. "One inmate was killed and 16 were shot in a February 23 incident involving about 200 of the 3,384 convicts crowded into a 2,280-capacity maximum-security prison. The riot broke out in the seldom-used prison yard, where some 28 black and three Latino prisoners were stabbed or wounded by other inmates. Authorities later recovered close to 90 inmate-manufactured weapons in the yard. " (Foley 2000) Only a small amount of concern is shown for inmate on inmate violence, and most people wish to ignore the harsh realities of guard on prisoner violence However, the safety of the prison workers is a high priority, and any violence that may threaten the prison guards is completely unacceptable. "At the San Quentin State Prison,...violence has also made headlines. In July, five inmates reserved in a yard for criminals with the worst disciplinary problems unraveled a chain-link fence and threatened guards manning a security gate before they were finally subdued." (Foley 2000) Being a guard at a high-security prison is certainly considered to be a risky occupation, due to the deeply engrained violence of the system; violence is a learned behavior in prison. "Guards abusing inmates are as common as the inmates abusing each other. The prison officials should not be surprised when the inmates retaliate and hurt the guards because the system seems to be operating on an 'eye for an eye' philosophy. If the prisons were properly run and better staffed these sort of things would be less likely to happen." (Talkleft Blogger 2003)

Another level of physical and psychological abuse is rampant in prison, and it may be the single most abusive and damaging element of prison culture. "Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), a prison watch organization in Fort Bragg founded by former prisoners, estimates that 80,000 unwanted sexual acts take place behind bars in the U.S. every day, with a total of 364,000 prisoners raped every year. Of those victims, the organization estimates 196,000 are males in state prisons, 123,000 are males in county jails, 40,000 are boys in juvenile and adult facilities, and 5,000 are women in prisons." (Foley 2000) Many prisoners are in fact the victims of rape more than once a day. Many members of the public will make the assumption that violent and sexual predators are to blame for the sexual abuses which take place in prisons. Unfortunately, the problem runs much deeper than that simple assumption. Members of the prison staff are in fact the abusers in an estimated 18% of prison rape incidents. Rape is about the perpetrator gaining power over his victim as much as it is about sex, and prison rapists are overwhelmingly heterosexual when outside of prison. The prison system is set up to make every prisoner helpless, powerless, and dehumanized; rape is a further way to insure the prisoner is ashamed and powerless. The rapist is often seeking to gain the only sense of power left to him after being corrupted by the cycle of violence in the system.

A large contributing factor to the viciousness of prison life is the fact that the staff is generally poorly trained and underpaid. Privatization of prisons has turned an intended public service into a money making venture, leaving the best intentions behind. The vast majority of a prison's running costs is the labor, therefore private companies can cut back on the number of workers, and the pay of the workers that are employed, and save a great deal on overall running cost. In order to replace workers, many private prisons rely heavily on electronic surveillance. In the Australian prison system, privatization proved to be disastrous. In attempts to save money, vicious cut backs were made in many areas. Visitation from children to the prison was banned because it required too many staff members to monitor. "The company's use of electronic surveillance meant there was little human contact between staff and inmates. The prison relied on drugs to keep control -- more than 90 per cent were on medication, mostly anti-psychotics and tranquilizers. The combination led to an explosion of self-mutilation and unprecedented levels of violence." (George 2003) in America, private companies were responsible for approximately five percent of the total prison population in 1995, and the numbers have grown steadily since then.

Prisons for Profit encourage a system where criminals are not proportionately punished for the severity of the crime. Low-level offenders, such as nonviolent drug users, are the most "profitable" prisoner demographic, and are therefore the most desirable to fill the cells in privately owned prisons. Low-level offenders are usually well-behaved and not prone to violent outbreaks, therefore the staff does not have to be as well trained in dealing with trouble inmates, and not as many staff members are needed to supervise these inmates. Additionally, there are not expensive psychological or rehabilitative programs needed for these offenders, so more costs can be cut. Low-level offenders also provide moneymaking opportunities to the managers of a privately run prison, because at the same time they are saving money for the company, they can be put to work. Within the facility, low-level offenders can cook and clean, cutting further staffing requirements, and they can be leased as in-prison workers to outsourcing companies for far less than minimum wage. For example, many companies like airlines lease prisoners to answer phones and take reservations. (Donziger 1997) Many privately run prisons are flourishing, making a tremendous profit, and building more space for new prisoners. However, one private contract in South Carolina was canceled "because the level of staffing in a juvenile facility was inadequate and the lack of training led to a flurry of complaints about physical abuse." (Donziger 1997)

The conservatives of the penal system debate may argue that the intention of prison is to punish, not rehabilitate, criminals. However, it would still be the responsibility of the prison system to ensure that only safe, reformed inmates were returned to the public, and even those prisoners without chance of release into society should be discouraged from criminal behavior within the prison. However, the prison system is not fulfilling its obligation to rehabilitate, reform, or otherwise improve criminals. The prison system is actually committing the greatest of crimes itself -- it is training people to become violent criminals. Gangs within prisons are accused of training prisoners to be hard-core gang-bangers, yet the crime of the prison system which creates criminals is far more widespread and severe. "What happens to first-time, non-violent drug offenders who get long prison sentences? Some pull through... Others are trained to be professional criminals." (Edmondson 1998) Even facilities that provide treatment personnel to help foster rehabilitation sabotages any valid efforts made in this area. The security-oriented nature of the prisons and general disregard for the value of prisoner life puts all treatment and rehabilitation issues on the back burner, discouraging and burning out the treatment personnel, and making programs ineffectual. (Eisenman 1993) the atmosphere within the prison is detrimental to the possible rehabilitation of any given prisoner. "It does not deter murder, rape, battery, etc., and may in fact promote their repetition." (Brigade, 1990) a detailed journey into the anti-rehabilitative nature of the prison system is presented in Jerome Miller's book Search and Destroy:

Jerome Miller theorizes that so many persons have been run through jails and prisons that the violent ethos of the correctional facility has increasingly come to shape behavior on the streets and undermine respect for the law. To survive prison, one must develop skills whose most efficient use on the outside are in activities that often land one back in prison. Skills that give one status in prison, like the ability to inflict violence on those who show disrespect, are not left behind at the prison gate. On the outside, where there are millions of guns available, these skills play out in a most incendiary fashion. The resulting violence, including drive-bys and executions over Nike sneakers, appear senseless only to those who know nothing about prison culture. The number of persons being convicted of a crime for the second or more time almost doubled between 1980 and 1995, and has been increasing steadily since. Most prisons have utterly failed to offer rehabilitative programs to help inmates develop the life skills they need to operate productively on the outside. (Donziger 1997)

Another crime being committed within the prison system is forced slave labor with substandard working conditions. Fifty years ago, the chain gang was a common site in the South of America: chained and shackled prisoners in the scorching heat doing hard physical labor to the point of exhaustion. Alabama, among other states, has chosen to reinstate the chain gang as a crime deterrent for those on probation or parole. The working conditions are being called inhumane and barbaric by opponents. "We believe the dehumanization of prisoners is counterproductive to rehabilitating inmates." (Jackson 1995) Prisoners report that it creates more tension, bitterness, and anger among prisoners. The rationale behind chain gangs being a good move for the Alabama state prisons is that it saves money by requiring fewer guards per group of prisoners. To insure that fewer guards are needed, and that the chain gang work detail is in fact seen as a harsh punishment to deter crime, many states are implementing the use of a stun belt in addition to leg shackles. There is great potential for a serious problem with this device. "Two guards will supervise twelve inmates. Each guard will monitor six inmates, all connected via the belt to the same radio frequency...there is a lot of potential for stunning the wrong person, or stunning all." (Cusak 1996) Additionally, the belts have only been safety tested on anesthetized pigs, and the effect that a significant electric shock may have on a physically strained and dehydrated person may be very dangerous.