The film, Quiet Rage: The Standard Prison Experiment, shows a real life example of how a person’s thoughts, attitudes, and behavior can be easily altered according to environmental changes. When exposed to changes in social situations, our mindsets and behaviors are easily influenced. In this experiment, male college students were randomly assigned roles as either a prison guard or a prisoner. Although the participants were fully aware that these were only roles and not their true identities, the participants were already experiencing changes in their own behavior by day two. The prisoners began adopting prisoner-like behavior such as rebelling and swearing at the guards as they walked by.
Coming from the outside world, McMurphy brings with him the element of free will. He recognizes the domination of Nurse Ratched and the ability to castrate the ward members. He makes it his mission to introduce freedom of thought and choice to the inmates. The patients realize what they have been missing out on. Although it might have been hurtful at first, he exposed them to the outside world and opened up their lives.
Some parolees become so distressed they often commit new crimes to return to their “sanctuary”: prison. In addition, parolees find it difficult readjusting to freedom. While they were incarcerated they became accustomed to the correctional institution doing everything for them, feeding them, telling them what to do, when to do it, and making every decision for them. Now for the first time in years there is no one there instructing them what do; harsh reality sets in, the parolee must try to figure out what they’re going to do about finding housing, feeding themselves, getting a job. Returning to society after years in prison is a rude awakening, what everyday tasks and events you and I see as part of everyday life the parolee sees as giant obstacles to overcome.
The IEP scheme (Incentives and Earned Privileges) is regularly updated and changed for the benefit of the prisoner, it is there to help the reformation and to stop the prisoners from re-offending. It is the fair and just allocation of sanctions and rewards, It enables people to move through defined levels in order to: • encourage responsible behaviour by prisoners • encourage effort and achievement in work and other constructive activity by prisoners • encourage sentenced prisoners to engage in sentence planning and benefit from activities designed to reduce re-offending • create a more disciplined, better-controlled and safer environment for prisoners and staff. These aims are achieved by ensuring that privileges above the minimum are earned by prisoners through good behaviour and are removed if they fail to maintain the acceptable standards. There are 3 levels - basic, standard and enhanced. Prisoners were assigned onto these levels according to staff reports on their behaviour.
Psychologically speaking depression can be a ramification because again the inmates are in their cells 22 hours a day. The cells are small and they are deprived of social communication. Going outside is a privilege to most. The time given to the inmates can be viewed as living under barbaric conditions even though we are speaking about criminals. Agnew posits that “deprived” communities are more likely to be populated by “strained” individuals and that these communities will suffer from more blocked opportunity structures, (Hoffman, 2003).
Many factors contribute to the psychological problems that are experienced post-prison. Institutions change a person through humiliation and distress – even solitary confinement is still widely used (Bonta, et al. 349). In many cases the authority figures take advantage of their power, no further demonstration is needed than that provided by the Stanford Prison Experiment. Even leaving abuse of power aside, the principal discomfort of prison is crowding, an issue serious enough to now cause reforms in prisoners’ sentencing, and interventions in court (Bonta, et al.
I measure the social capital I have in terms of the beneficial friendships I have, and by this definition my social capital is substantial. 2. Do you believe there is a latent trait that makes a person crime prone, or is crime a function of environment and socialization? A person with a latent trait is more apt to get involved in crime. This is because their brain does not translate right from wrong, and when put into an environmental socialization network they are easy to manipulate and will do almost anything to fit in with the people they hang around with.
√The financial and societal savings of providing an inmate higher education are enormous. Upon an inmate’s release, the cost-benefit of reducing recidivism will begin to be realized immediately. If we consider the additional benefit of this individual obtaining work, paying taxes, and contributing to the general economy, and the prevention of costs to victims of crime and the criminal justice system the benefits are significantly greater (Sherman). √The educational level of a parent is a clear predictor of both the educational achievements of a child and the level of a parental involvement in a child’s education. As the majority of prisoners are parents, the education of adults in prison can have a positive and long-lasting impact upon the lives of their children (Brown).
Running Head: SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS Even though cultural lag and how inventions are changing for the better or worse, inventions and technology because having tools that are used today to make it easier to do things and discovery in the process of change. Social change being based primarily on technology is how Sociologist William Ogburn developed his theories (Henslin, 2013, pg. 463). Looking at thing with this perspectives, makes it easy to see how socially we have moved from hunting and gathering to domestication of plants and animals, to make the gathering easier. Soon the invention of plows to harvest, allowing larger groups of people to live together, creating society and continuing to move things forward with technology begins to
Illinois, in particular, is suffering from overcrowded prisons quite severely. Nearly every prison in the state is overcrowded. In order to solve this increasingly serious problem, many steps must be taken to begin prison reform and to begin living in a country in which the way we punish our criminals makes more sense and is more effective than how it is today. Everyone seems to know someone that is in prison these days, whether the person has committed a serious, violent crime, or just got caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, they still end up in some sort of prison facility. In fact the U.S.’s rate of incarceration is 455 people per every 100,000 people (Smolowe, 1994).