Prisonization and Recidivism Rates
In our society, prison is used as a hidey hole for ‘unwanted’ people. The system that we have set up is not designed to rehabilitate members of society, it is designed to keep undesirables out of the way. It’s time that we as a society begin to think of prison a teaching experience as equally as a punishment. Prison recidivism rates can be significantly reduced by steps to counteract prisonization.
A widely held anthropological theory is that in order for society to function correctly, things must be divided into categories. One of these categories is that of ‘others’, or those deemed taboo by mainstream society. Prisoners fall into this category. Despite advances in civil rights, members of the lower class …show more content…
The process of prisonization includes some or all of the following psychological adaptations: dependence on institutional structure and the relinquishment of autonomy; hypervigilance, interpersonal mistrust, and suspicion; emotional over-control, alienation, and psychological distancing; social withdrawal and isolation; incorporation of exploitative norms of prison culture; diminished sense of self-worth and personal value; and posttraumatic stress reactions to the pains of …show more content…
Prisoners that leave the prison walls suddenly find themselves having to make every decisis ion on their own when before they were expected to follow directions implicitly. The factors that push people into the prison system in the first place ensure that they will never truly leave. It’s a vicious cycle. People who are already at a disadvantage are disproportionately targeted, and then stripped of what few resources they had. When they leave, they have lost an important piece of their survival skills. They often turn to drugs or crime, the same coping mechanisms that may have worked for them in prison. This only reinforces the stigma that the outside world has about prisoners, because they look at the people coming out and see the hopeless cases they were expecting. We need to stop setting people up for failure.
We need to implement a therapeutic model of prisons. The mainstream view of prison is a place to ‘put’ people until they are ‘better’. The reality of the situation is that these inmates are not going to get better on their own. We need to lift the taboo on inmates and bring their problems to light as the problems of our society as a
In our society, prison is used as a hidey hole for ‘unwanted’ people. The system that we have set up is not designed to rehabilitate members of society, it is designed to keep undesirables out of the way. It’s time that we as a society begin to think of prison a teaching experience as equally as a punishment. Prison recidivism rates can be significantly reduced by steps to counteract prisonization.
A widely held anthropological theory is that in order for society to function correctly, things must be divided into categories. One of these categories is that of ‘others’, or those deemed taboo by mainstream society. Prisoners fall into this category. Despite advances in civil rights, members of the lower class …show more content…
The process of prisonization includes some or all of the following psychological adaptations: dependence on institutional structure and the relinquishment of autonomy; hypervigilance, interpersonal mistrust, and suspicion; emotional over-control, alienation, and psychological distancing; social withdrawal and isolation; incorporation of exploitative norms of prison culture; diminished sense of self-worth and personal value; and posttraumatic stress reactions to the pains of …show more content…
Prisoners that leave the prison walls suddenly find themselves having to make every decisis ion on their own when before they were expected to follow directions implicitly. The factors that push people into the prison system in the first place ensure that they will never truly leave. It’s a vicious cycle. People who are already at a disadvantage are disproportionately targeted, and then stripped of what few resources they had. When they leave, they have lost an important piece of their survival skills. They often turn to drugs or crime, the same coping mechanisms that may have worked for them in prison. This only reinforces the stigma that the outside world has about prisoners, because they look at the people coming out and see the hopeless cases they were expecting. We need to stop setting people up for failure.
We need to implement a therapeutic model of prisons. The mainstream view of prison is a place to ‘put’ people until they are ‘better’. The reality of the situation is that these inmates are not going to get better on their own. We need to lift the taboo on inmates and bring their problems to light as the problems of our society as a