Prison Reflection Paper

I will never forget the advice and life lessons I received from the the prisoners. Overall, the visit to Gouverneur Correctional Facility was unforgettable and extremely humbling. As we arrived to the prison we checked in and were escorted into a side room where we got a general overview of what the day would consist of by a pair of the correctional officers. We were shown some of the injuries that occurred and some of the weapons that were found at the prison. The injuries were especially disturbing, many of the images displayed prisoners with their faces shredded, there was even a picture of a prisoner’s thumbs that had been cut off. After being prepped by the correctional officers we were escorted to the room where the seven prisoners were, in the room we were accompanied by two …show more content…
From lunch we taken on a tour of the facility by the correctional officers. We got to see the school, the vocational center, and the special housing unit (SHU). This completed the tour of Gouverneur Correctional Facility.
When I entered the prison I was expecting something completely different than what I got out of the experience. The media had formed my ideas about prison prior to the visit. Based on what I had seen on television I thought prison was full of gigantic and intimidating psychos, but instead I realized that not everyone in prison is a bad person at heart. Many of the prisoners talked about prison had changed them as a person, I specifically talked to Latief Graham, prisoner 13-A-4105, and he said that prison had made him a better person. All of the prisoners stressed the idea that prison is what you make out of it and you get out of it what you put into it. The prison has programs to help the prisoners to become better people and it was