Prison-industrial complex

Links This article makes me think about how those in charge of the prison system control not only the lives of those who are incarcerated, but also those who must believe that people are being put in prison for good reasons. By giving people solutions to their problems, such as economic hardship, the prison industrial complex convinces people that they are out to help society and do what is right for everyone. The Prison Trap. This article was written by Sullivan and published in the…

to funding shortages for public housing, law enforcement is increasingly being used to drive the homeless off of city streets and into jails for low level offenses. An increase in budget cuts to addiction and mental health services has resulted in prisons becoming “de facto mental hospitals, [...] with a special impact on minorities and low-income people.” Even women and children are being affected by this increase in criminalization. In communities with underfunded police departments there has…

(Tennessee Department of Correction, n.d.b). The state has maintained the accreditation since it was awarded undergoing recertification every three years. The Tennessee Department of Correction focused on providing a safe and secure environment within the prisons while providing rehabilitation to incarcerated offenders. The Tennessee Department of Correction increased its efforts of reform to include community correction in 2012 transferring the supervision of probation and parole away from the…

ways of punishing and correcting inmates’ behavior has offered a prolific terrain to study prisons’ social and physical environments. In this view, several scholars emphasized the widely used practice of solitary confinement as a social phenomenon that warrants particular attention (Bennion, 2015; Arrigo, & Bullock, 2008; Steinbuch, 2014). Theory and Literature Review The theory of this study is that prison and solitary confinement impacts prisoners’ well-being. Public programs, mental health,…

massive problem with its prisons. Our prisons have a disproportionate number of minority inmates. There are many underlying factors fueling this imbalance. This research paper will highlight and inspect the social, political, and legal structures that currently contribute to this disparity. I will also address the issues that exacerbate our penal system: generational poverty, the war on drugs, and racial profiling. When you hear of a disparity between minority and Caucasian prison populations,…

When one drives through a neighborhood what do you expect to see? What is anticipated is to see beautiful homes, clean cut lawns, and what can be perceived as a safe living environment. However, if one was to see the opposite would they assume that the neighborhood has a higher rate of crime or that it is potentially less protected? The Broken Windows Theory relates a similar conjecture. This theory was proposed in 1982 by a social scientist named James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. The…

United States, which deprives massively of freedom mainly to poor individuals, where the possibilities that someone is arrested, convicted and sentenced increase exponentially if that person in addition to being a poor person is black or Hispanic. The prison system is not only designed as a system of crime prevention and control, it operates as a system of racial control that obeys also to an economic model, in itself very profitable that under the facade of a valid social control found a…

As most prisons have been designed to accommodate for security measures, such as cameras, barricade doors, effective placement of staff to be able to respond quickly and safely to an area of physical violence, so that to protect themselves and other inmates from further harm, as well as being able to effectively control inmate mobility. In common areas within a facility staff is able to isolate areas in which physical altercations are occurring, reducing the ability of other inmates to join into…

Race in the United states is a course which explores race and race relations through discussions. Through the course, we could discuss various topics which race affects. For example, we discussed the prison system, health care, poverty, education, affirmative action, and much more. Not only did we focus on African Americans and whites, but we also explore different ethnicities and the way their ethnicity and race affected them. A big focus in the class was the intersectionality of race and…

having the highest incarceration rate in the world. A shift in prison policies over the past few decades has received most of the blame. In response to high crime rates, politicians did not want to seem "soft on crime" and enacted policies such as lengthy sentences, mandatory minimums, and "three-strikes" laws. Along with this shift in policy came a shift in the nature of the prison itself as incarceration rates skyrocketed: are prisons for punishment, or are they for rehabilitation? Which…