Prison Problem \"The Violence People

Prison Problem

"The violence people bring into the world has its roots in violence they witnessed, or which was done to them, at very young ages."

-Bruce Western

People usually commit crime in a hopeless effort to pacify a paining urge that must have hurt them at some point in life. They may be taking revenge, satisfying a psychological craving, fulfilling a passion or simply just unknowingly committing a crime; a price is always to be paid for their profane action. Imprisonment of people charged guilty of committing a crime is practiced nearly all over the world and is actually a way of the society to exhibit that it rejects actions which can potentially compromise the safety of citizens (Gendreau, 1999). History also has evidence regarding imprisonment of those who spread despair in society but in ancient times the convict had to undergo a similar treatment as punishment that he had inflicted on his victim, mostly in the form of bodily suffering (Cragg, 2002). Fortunately, now the aims associated with punishment are more humane and are fully justifiable as they focus on punishment that would encourage deterrence from crime and rehabilitation (Foucault, 2008). The extent to which they are being achieved by the system now is, however, questionable.

The Purpose of Imprisonment and Punishment

From the strategy of corporal punishment, the world has now moved towards objective imprisonment in which offenders of society are removed from it for a period of time so they no longer remain able to carry on with their hostile behavior (Cragg, 2002). This isolation is meant to function as a means of punishing the criminal and also to gain contention of society that retribution is taking place; it is supposed to deter the lawbreaker from committing more crime by generating abhorrence for his own acts in his heart so he may know the futility of his actions; and finally that time of seclusion should sculpt a new person out of the criminal who may be able to act as a functional and acceptable part of the society when he returns to it (Johnson, 1996).

Living Conditions Provided to Imprisoned Persons

The whole idea of imprisonment revolves around solitude and segregation. The culprit is isolated from the world, everything that stimulates his criminal behavior and even from other criminals in social contact (Cragg, 2002). The restrictions that entangle the convict in prisons may be harsh but these restrictions intend to debilitate and smother all personality traits that render the criminal harmful or dysfunctional in the society.

The aims with which imprisonment and its design is suggested for offenders is defensible as it is society itself that demands justice but the actual physical and mental outcomes as compared to the intended ones are highly debatable. The solitary confinement which is destined to give the prisoners a chance to deem over their past and make amends has proved to be nothing but an inhumane torture that often yields even more deteriorated personalities out of the convicts (Johnson, 1995). Delusions, claustrophobia, depression, panic and mild to extreme madness are traits of some of the mental disorders that attack the prisoner.

Mental Turmoil During and After Imprisonment

An offender is wholly separated from the dynamics of the world and he is bound to spend a portion of his life in seclusion. The difference of both worlds -- the prison environment and the outside world - is jarring and sharp that numbs the senses of people imprisoned (Gudrais, 2013).

Confining a person to prison opens him to psychological deprivations. Imprisonment is a way of telling the offender that he is not trusted to be able to move in the society and be useful. He is not among the people who are respected and trusted (Johnson, 1996). Prisons and isolation have the tendency to dehumanize even a normal person by having them experience ultimate anonymity, ill feelings about self, rejection from society and lack of support.

The practice of safe-keeping is performed in most prisons in which prisoners are kept at a safe distance mostly while allowing certain controlled moments of welfare, counseling and creativity. A major portion of an inmate's helplessness, deprivation, depression and self-loathing etc. arises due to physical and psychological victimization that he or she has to face. Physical victimization includes homicide, assault and rape. These arise due to poor staff supervision and keeping defenseless prisoners with the violent ones. On the other hand, psychological victimization involves verbal manipulation and harsh psychological attacks of personal nature.

The stronger inmates attempt to create their own subcultures that show their dominance, rule and assertion on all prisoners (Heilpern, 1998). To fulfill the maintenance of these subcultures, they resort to rape, riots or even homicide spreading mental illnesses like stress, phobias, enhanced criminal activity, shame, guilt, etc. among the weaker prisoners.

Imprisonment: Eliminating or aggravating crime?

It is not a hidden matter that jails, even after intensive care and security, are not free of brutality, stress and violence among the inmates. The safety of each and every inmate is threatened as well as the prisoner himself is a threat to other's safety. Record of prisons show that constant fear and stress hardly cure the offenders. More than 2.2 million Americans are imprisoned at this time; this population remains dynamic and the number of people released is quite near to the number of people who go back (Gudrais, 2013). The released persons, although apparently lucky, have to face the world from where they were rejected before with an even more smudged past. Unfortunately, more than two thirds of the people released are arrested again. This ratio raises a very significant question on the status of prisons as remedial facilities for offenders of the society (Gudrais, 2013).

Lack of social support and rehabilitative services to the prisoners carry a heavy cost to the offender. Locking up people and being ignorant towards their basic human needs is not humane as well; this strategy does not work anymore. Crime itself is stimulated by poverty, addiction and family violence and providing the same conditions in prison is not a punishment. It is actually a recap and reinforcement of what the prisoner faced before being imprisoned.