This false impression is what the general public views as, life behind bars. In the criminal justice system, prison plays a vital role in deterring citizens from committing offences. The images held by the general public, due to the media’s account of the prison system, are enough to prevent most people from committing crimes. This representation in movies and television programs is often false and misleading, portraying the prison system as a dangerous place where criminals are sent to pay for their crimes. Criminals are constantly shown living in fear of other inmates or working tirelessly on roads or laundry mats.
Society is safer but not these prisons and jails. These criminals are going to go right to prison, fight, have wars and kill each other. That is a whole other problem in itself. Additionally, Correctional officers are more at risk for danger because they must monitor all of these Inmates. More stress, chaos, and contact among inmates and staff.
The Precautions, Steps, and Measures Taken to Control Gangs and Security Threat Groups in Prison Overview Gangs in America have multiplied at such an extreme that even the smallest counties have reported some forms of gang activity in their communities. When members of these gangs are arrested and convicted on felony charges; they are put into our correctional system and disregarded by the public. However, many of these gang members stay together in prison putting themselves, staff, and other inmates at risk of violence. The troubles presented by gang affiliated inmates until recently have not been widely researched. Due to increasing violence and gang activity numerous steps are now being implemented address gain affiliation in our prison system.
When the death penalty was no more the jail suffered overcrowding which led to riots, escapes, and prison guards were attacked. The Pennsylvania Prison Society and the Philadelphia Society for Alluarting Misers of Public Prisons stepped in to solve the overcrowding issue by building Pittsburgh Western Penitentiary and Cherry Hill Prison. Today there are 1,200 prisons in the United States and overcrowding is still an issue. Lawmakers believe in three main goals of the correctional system: 1. Punish those who are found guilty of the
Recruitment is a continually evolving system that targets youth in many cases, with a focused message catering to their insecurities. Prison gangs have a surprisingly complex political system of hierarchy. Meticulous ways of communication are developed and spread throughout the various groups. From banging against the bars in specific patterns to micro writing on paper that is hidden in body cavities, communication is a vital part of how a prison gang functions. Gangs function with the methodology of creating strategic allies that will help them further their own destructive agendas.
Red is the mediator or polemicist, meaning that he’s a smooth talker and debater. In Shawshank he’s know as the man that can get anything for you from the outside … for a price of course. He’s a crook with a good heart and somewhat good intentions, but he confides to the prison walls to blur the lines of reality outside in the real world. Inside the prison he has value to his name and his insecurities are concealed by the opaque violence, and hard stance of Shawshank’s environment. Hope motivates him, but he does anything in his will to cloak that fact.
Drug dealers and gang bangers (members of urban street gangs) are hated by society, but they occupy positions of importance and power in the cellblocks. Even strong-arm rapists who sexually assault other inmates are grudgingly admired in prison for their ability to dominate the weak (Hassine). Prisoners claim that an inmate code (or a set of values and beliefs distinctive to prisons) binds this subculture together. This code is the unofficial rule book for the informal organization of inmates. In particular, the code depicts prison as a chaotic, violent, and predatory jungle; inmates call penitentiaries gladiator schools, where only the strong survive (Abbott).
Cruel and Unusual Punishment Kristin Mara Southern New Hampshire University 1 June 2014 Graeme Newman’s theory of the “just and Painful” Graeme Newman’s book “Just and Painful” discusses the confusion on punishment in the prison system. He discusses that there should be corporal punishment but by design. There needs to be a structured system on how criminals pay their dues for the crime committed. A person accused of a vicious rape should not be equaled to someone who stole from a grocery store. But unfortunately when they are sent to prison they both are humiliated and somewhat tortured to the same degree.
He accepts the consequences that came with his arrest by leaving for the prison camp. But his story prompted the Captain to say “We ain’t never had one of them before.” He has not changed himself into becoming a part of what society is expected to be. Emerson says “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions,” where a large portion of the population likes to follow the expectations and image that other have set up for them. This is essentially what happens to a major part of society which is why expectations and the “norm” have been set up because it’s what everyone is accustomed to. Although without expectations, an idea of a regular society cannot be created leaving many people lost and not knowing what to do.
America's prisons have been called "graduate schools for crime." It stands to reason: Take a group of people, strip them of possessions and privacy, expose them to constant threats of violence, overcrowd their cell-block, deprive them of meaningful work, and the result is an embittered underclass more intent on getting even with society than contributing to it. Prisons take the nonviolent offender and make him live side by side with violent offender. They take the nonviolent offender and make him a hardened criminal. America has to wake up and realize that the current structure of our penal system is failing terribly.