Sociology of Prisons

Exploring the sociology of the US prison system

[koglerh167-blog]

This series of photographs by Damien McGuinness of BBC News, Tbilisi shows some of the nearly 5,000 inmates in the state of Georgia reuniting with their loved ones after being released from jail. The article from BBC News  describes how most of the freed inmates shown were peaceful protestors that were incarcerated when a protest quickly escalated into a violent riot. However the look on these people’s faces show the emotion of being released from prison, and the joy of not only re-entering society but also coming back to the families and social lives that they had to leave behind. Many of these inmates may have been unfairly convicted or treated while they were in prison, but the ultimate result of being released and having these reunions seems to be the best reward for everyone for serving the time allotted for the crime they committed.

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Time Magazine created this photo essay entitled “Welcome to Prison Valley” with photographs by Phillipe Brault, Agence Vu and Aurora of Freemont County, Colorado. The county is home to thirteen different prison complexes with roughly 7,500 inmates in each and these images look to capture the scale of prisons in Freemont County as well as the lives that are touched by the systems in place. Some of the most notorious and dangerous inmates are held in these facilities. Because of this, guard fatality in Colorado prisons is very high, and the community often gathers in remembrance of the guards that lost their lives while on duty.  Photographs include the construction of a second Colorado State Penitentiary, guards uniforms that were made in bulk in a store that specializes in prison dress codes , a general layout of prison facilities being built in the county, the poverty of the community, and the wives and families and community of Freemont County living around these prison facilities. Prison facilities dominate the already poverty stricken economy of the county. Because of this, without prisons the county of Freemont would not continue to run due to the lack of jobs and economy outside of the prisons. The construction of new prison facilities provides jobs as well as utilize inmates work for higher efficiency at lower costs to contractors. Freemont county revolves around prison, making it one of the largest places in America for prison systems and prison related jobs.

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This video is part of a campaign by three former prisoners, one of which who is featured here, Chris Wilson that are fighting for reform within the prison system. The article from The Root describes how Chris Wilson, Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur and Shaka Senghor have all made themselves successful since being released from prison and are now looking to push for reform within the prison systems. The main idea that they are promoting supports the concept that there needs to be more rehabilitation and reform programs in place for inmates in order to deal with the issue of rising crime rates. The solution of mass incarceration is only making the re-offence rate increase steadily as more and more people are being placed in prisons for extremely long mandatory minimum sentences. Instead of providing aid to inmates to make sure they don’t return to the bad habits that got them sentenced to prison and giving them the tools to build successful lives as the three men have done here.

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

Qualitative Research

The qualitative research that I chose for this project was a report on for profit prisons conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU is a non profit organization whose mission is to “"to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The report conducted by the ACLU highlights the rise of the privatization of our nation's prison system and works to expose corruption and injustice that is generated by such a practice. The report’s first part begins with illustrating how the privatization of our prison systems came to be in America then goes on to challenge the supposed benefits of privatizing prisons. And ends with expanding upon how these private prisons go on to make their case to politicians and those in power. The reason I believe this report is relevant to my blog is because it highlights one of the main injustices that our prison system is currently going through. In order for theses for profit prisons to be profitable corporations must have a large amount of inmates to work with. These inmates can then be exploited for cheap and unethical labor. In order to fill the quota of prisoners corporations turn to lawmakers to crack down on “crime”. An example of this is mass incarceration for drug related offenses, Studies found that over 60% of the prison population is currently incarcerated for a drug related offense. Private corporations legally bribe politicians with large campaign donations and attempt to sway their thinking with lobbying. These corporations have also been found to be paying off politicians for their cooperation in for profit prison expansion. I believe that this report makes several great points about one of the many reasons why our current prison system is fundamentally unjust and unethical.

Source:

https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

After conducting research on the United States Prison system and criminal justice system I have come to conclusion that prisons are a source of social injustice and inequality. To those who are unused to thinking of life through a sociological lense U.S. prisons seem to fulfil a vital necessity within our society. However, while it is true that prisons do serve a vital function in America they also go far beyond the scope of what I believe to be moral and ethical. In a perfect world prisons serve the function of separating productive and “good” members of society from those who are unproductive and “evil”. Criminals are those who breach serious formalized social norms and expectations which come in the form of laws.  Without laws society as we know it would not be able to function; and as a result is necessary for society to offer punishment and sanctions for those who break those laws. These sanctions can take different form depending on the type of crime committed. If a crime is not very serious the perpetrator would likely be let off with a warning or fine. While the most heinous of crimes could be punishable by death or a lifetime in prison. However, the most common types of criminals in our prison systems tend to be somewhere in the middle who commit relatively serious crimes and must stay a relatively long amount of time behind bars the average sentence being about 3 years. Prisoners are not meant to be locked up behind bars forever, however prisons often fail to prepare inmates for life on the outside. Inside  prisons themselves there is a culture of violence, and survival of the fittest attitude.  This culture and lifestyle has an adverse affect on the inmate's’ ability to become the functioning members of society that we all claim to want. According to study conducted by the bureau of statistics people who are released from have a 68% chance of being sent back for a different crime within a three year period. The united states Prison system fails to adequately deal with the issue of rehabilitation in our own prison population. This is a critical problem while some might only believe that a prison's function should be simply to punish criminals I believe that we should be striving to turn these individuals onto the path of productivity within our society. Otherwise setting up these individuals to fail which will in turn have a higher cost on our society. Our prison system is flawed in many ways more than this and as a result I encourage anyone with an interest in social justice to do there own research on the subject as there is so much more information you can find if you’re willing to look.

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

Video:13th

13th is a Netflix original documentary which closely analyses the social, political, racial and economic motivations behind mass incarceration. The 1 hour and 40 minute film powerfully illustrates the sad reality of the united states criminal justice system. The film legally only available for streaming on Netflix and I would encourage anyone who wishes to watch it to use a legal method in order to support Netflix who provided the resources that helped make this brilliant film possible. However, for the purpose of this page I have found an alternative viewing method.

You can watch the video online here:https://gomovies.to/film/13th-17363/watching.html?ep=541393

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

For the quantitative research portion of this project I turned to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the International Centre for Prison Studies website. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is a government run website which records and compiles large amounts of raw data that relates to the criminal justice system in America. Through the website I was able to find lots of interesting quantitative data about the united states prison system. The International Centre for Prison Studies is a site run by an organization which collects data about prisons all over the world and compares them.Through the site I was able to look into the prison population growth rates, incarceration demographics, and conviction rates overtime. In examining these statistics I hope to bring attention to some of the problems that the United States prison system is currently facing. According to findings from the International Centre for Prison Studies the United States leads the Incarceration rates per 100,000 people internationally. The United States incarcerates 670 people per 100,000 and has more than 2.2 million in our prisons and jails. For a nation as “civilized” as the United States I find it interesting that we need to imprison more of our citizens than any other nation on earth. Incarceration rates within the United States have increased by more than 500% in the last 40 years. Throughout our nation's history the prison population had been increasing steadily since 1972 and had continued to increase yearly in spite of a steadily decreasing crime rate beginning in the early 90s. Although it seems rather contradictory I believe that a growing incarceration rate in spite of the decreasing crime rate shows that there are larger social forces at work. An example of this is how the practice of mass incarceration has not affected all people equally. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics people of color are much more likely to be incarcerated than white people. The Bureau found that the likelihood of incarceration for a white man was 1 in 17, 1 in 6 for a latino man and 1 in 3 for an African American man. These worrying trends are also reflected in the female population. I am curious as to why the black and latino population who are minorities are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated. These unusual statistics point towards the problems that lurk within the bowels of our criminal justice system.

Sources: https://www.bjs.gov/ , http://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/ , http://www.prisonstudies.org/

[sociologyofusprisonsystems-blog]

Introduction

For my project I will be analyzing and critiquing the sociology of the United States prison system. On this Tumblr page I will examine various aspects of the United States Prison system through a functionalist and conflict theory perspective. The reason why the sociology of the United States prison system is so important to me is because I believe that prisons in the US are a source of social inequality and injustice. My strong feelings on the subject is the main reason for my own interest. For my project I will be analyzing and critiquing the sociology of the United States prison system. On this Tumblr page I will examine various aspects of the United States Prison system through a functionalist and conflict theory perspective. The reason why the sociology of the United States prison system is so important to me is because I believe that prisons in the US are a source of social inequality and injustice. My strong feelings on the subject is the main reason for my own interest.  There are many injustices that plague our society, however feel as though the injustices that inmates in America face are often forgotten by the public at large. It is easy for to dehumanize and otherize criminals people easily forget that these people locked behind bars are more than just inmates. They are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. By no means am I trying to insinuate that criminals do not deserve fair and reasonable punishment for their immoral behavior. However, as you’ll come to learn the United States prison system goes far beyond the scope of ethical and fair treatment of our inmates. So in order to shed some light on the plight of those who have been victimized by our prison system I have chosen to tackle this topic.