Value In Prison

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The word “value” undoubtedly holds significant meaning to the human race. The life of a human is structured around how they are valued by society, their family, and thus themselves. Arguably, the value they are granted as an individual is based on what they value morally and ethically on a daily basis. When a person is born, they already have been provided with a foundation of values, stemming from their parents. A person’s value can either benefit, or potentially suffer from the way they are raised. Thus, one must make careful and wise life decisions, as their value as a citizen within society could vanish in an instant. A person who repeatedly finds themselves in trouble with the law will be losing value gradually. However, as soon as they …show more content…

In prison it is as if you sign away your mind and body to the government. Inmates become political entities. According to Foucault, “…the body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (173). Within prison walls, all of your human rights and abilities are taken away from you. You can still breathe, but every piece of you is numb. Inmates are brainwashed by the loud sounds of silence. A prisoner’s body is being controlled by power, and the quickly invading knowledge that they are helpless and valueless ruptures their mind. In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott, he states, “My body plays with my mind; my mind plays with my body; the further I go into that terrain of time, into my memories, the more they enter my imagination” (525). In the world of incarceration, there is nowhere to turn. These inmates become hamsters on a wheel. When their mind can no longer play with their body, their body turns around and plays with their mind, until the cycle begins again. As time passes, the past becomes a blur and the meaning of life is forgotten. Does their life even have meaning or purpose anymore? Foucault’s statement that the “prison environment” is “an instrument… is the whole technology of power over the body…technology of the “soul,” proves inmates are just puppets on a string (178). With no control over their body, mind, and soul, value cannot be

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