Institutionalized Corruption In The Shawshank Redemption

Institutionalized Corruption Typically prisons are designed to reform and punish individuals for crimes that they have committed. However, research suggests that prisons have had little impact on these wrongdoers, and many have returned to the place that they thought they would never go back to. In addition, there are prisoners who leave the system as dehumanized individuals, not knowing what to do with themselves after learning to be so reliant on the guards and warden. In the film The Shawshank Redemption directed by Frank Darabont, Brooks Hatlen is a prime example of a prisoner who was institutionalized. Brooks was a resident of Shawshank for 50 years, and was locked up for so long that he forgot how to function outside of the prison …show more content…
After being released from his fifty year sentence, Brooks felt like he had entered a new world, one where time and industrialization moved a million miles a minute. This film describes the stories of these prisoners living in agony, in a place that most likely will not help reform them and reintegrate them into society as good human beings. Shawshank is a corrupt place, where many of the guards and even the prison itself is more nefarious than those who live inside of it. In order to change these ways, they need to attempt to reform and amend the way that they treat the …show more content…
However, it also encourages them to develop occupational skills and to resolve problems such as substance abuse or aggression that will interfere with their interactions with society. Many prisons in the US choose to focus on the "tough on crime" approach, which encourages strict punishment and confinement. This has increased the number of inmates within prisons, which in turn decreases the quality of these places and leads to neglect of the prisoners. Due to the fact that the majority of prisons in the U.S. use this tough method, many prisoners return to society without learning from their mistakes. Although the U.S. chooses to use tougher methods in their institutions, there are many prisons around the world who do things in a better way. At Bastoy prison in Norway, they give inmates more freedom than they typically do in a mainstream prison. They walk around with weapons so that they are able to chop down wood for furniture, grow vegetables and raise livestock. These prisoners are expected to care for themselves, if they do not cut down trees it will cover the island, and if they don’t tend the crops they will have no food to live off