Ethics in the Prison System

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Ethics in the Prison System By Soc 120 Ethics in the Prison System Have you ever heard someone say you are treating me like a prisoner? Have you ever taken the time to think about what those words really mean? In todays society there are many prisons filled with men and women who have committed a crime and are now being in prisoned for those crimes. We refer to these individuals as prisoners or convicts. But, what exactly do these individuals face. Some people say criminals have it “too good” in prison. What is considered ethical for treatment of prisoners? “The correctional population has expanded more than 4.5 fold between 1978 and 2004—from 1.5 million to almost 7 million as a result of tougher sentencing laws and the war on drugs. Just within prisons and jails, the population grew from 454,444 to 2.1 million. The rest of the expansion occurred among probationers and parolees (BJS, 2005g).” This means there are many prisoners and little room; this cause unethical issues to arise. A typical day in a California state prison consists of being told to woke up at 5am and told “chow time.” If you decide not to get up you did not get your morning meal. Prisoners that do get up are placed in a single file line and taken to the “chow hall”, once there they are given 15 minutes to eat. Upon dismissal prisoners are instructed to grab a boxed lunch for their next meal. Again those that do not make it to breakfast do not get lunch. Does this seem ethical that even though a person who commited a will miss two meals in a day just for not waking up in the morning? Prisoners are mandated to participate in a educational program. These range from earning credits to get a High School diploma to learning a trade or working in the kitchen. This allows the prisoners to expand their knowledge. However there is a stipulation, prisoners are

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