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Psychological effects of prison
Mental health in prison #essay
Causes of violence in prisons
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Cruelty in prison will be reduced with some minor changes! However, violence has been an ongoing problem in the penitentiary in both men and women’s prison. Roughly around 990,000 men are incarcerated in this country (Stojkovic 549). In addition to, 65,000 women offenders are incarcerated today (Stojkovic 549). Fights that happen in prison have gotten to an extreme high in society. Correction officers reported at least 3,000 assaults on inmates and officers each year at Rikers Island in New York City (Welch 178). Both inmates and officers say violence in the penitentiary is like violence on the streets but more concentrated (Welch 178).
Violence is a serious social problem and can be traced to particular forms of aggression because prisons nationwide hold thousands of violent offenders (Welch 325). Motives and goals of prison violence are characterized as either instrumental or expressive (Welch 325). Instrumental violence comes from incentive-motivated aggression and includes incidents that inmates threaten, physically or sexually assault other prisoner or the purpose of garnering power, enhancing status, or promoting a particular self-image within the prison society (Welch 325 & 326). However, expressive violence is rooted in annoyance motivated aggression because of overcrowding, lack of privacy, idleness, and incessant noise (Welch 326). Violent actions do not only happen with one prisoner.
They can also happen with multiple inmates, which are known as a riot. Riots include the participation of fifteen or more prisoners resulting in property damage and personal injury (Stojkovic 312). Property damage that may occur are fires set on different parts of the penitentiary causing electrical systems to be destroy...
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...: Anderson Pub., 1997. Print.
Toch, Hans, Kenneth Adams, James Douglas Grant, and Elaine Lord. Acting Out: Maladaptive Behavior in Confinement. 1st ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002. Print.
Topham, James. "PRISON RIOTS." Patrick Crusade. 6 Jan. 2003. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. .
Voyles, Karen. "Report Explores Violence in Prisons | Gainesville.com." Gainesville.com Gainesville FL News, Sports, Weather and More | Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun. 8 June 2006. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. .
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" With violence affecting so many lives, one can understand the desire driven by fear to lock away young male offenders. But considering their impoverished, danger-filled lives, I wonder whether the threat of being locked up for decades can really deter them from crime" (305). Hopkins is definitely not our stereotypical prisoner. Most generally, our view of prisoners is not that of someone who has this profound use of wording and this broad sense of knowledge.
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.
Throughout his novel, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire, author and professor Robert Perkinson outlines the three current dominant purposes of prison. The first, punishment, is the act of disciplining offenders in an effort to prevent them from recommitting a particular crime. Harsh punishment encourages prisoners to behave because many will not want to face the consequences of further incarceration. While the purpose of punishment is often denounced, many do agree that prison should continue to be used as a means of protecting law-abiding citizens from violent offenders. The isolation of inmates, prison’s second purpose, exists to protect the public. Rehabilitation is currently the third purpose of prison. Rehabilitation is considered successful when a prisoner does n...
Assaults on correctional officers in prison are not uncommon. Aggressive inmates need to be kept under control, which can sometimes cause fights between themselves and the officers. According to Stephen C. Light, a graduate from SUNY Plattsburgh “The sample consists of the 694 incidents of assaults by prisoners on offices that were reported to have occurred in 31 New York State prisons” (Light, 1991). The amount of assaults on officers demonstrates how violent inmates can get. Over 600 assaults in 31 different NY State prisons, displays one of the many hardships and challenges that come with being a corrections officer. Prison cells and housing areas are two places where prisoners spend most of their time. Those areas are the ones with the most frequent outbreak of assaults occur (Light, 1991). However, there is more to the assaults on officers than just how many there are and the location of where they
...Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and "Supermax" Confinement. Crime and Delinquency, 49(124), 124-154. doi:10.1177/0011128702239239
It is easy to turn a blind I when there is no direct personal experience. Mass incarceration is an issue that influences other issues within the correctional system. The more people under correctional supervision means, the more individuals who can potentially be sexually victimized or placed in solitary confinement. Both are issues within the correctional system. Moreover, studies have shown that sexual victimization and solitary confinement have adverse side effects on inmates. If any of these variables are going to change for the better, then policy needs to change. Those in society, especially those with power who can affect policy in the penal system need to see these issues as a major problem. Some of the proposed solutions to reduce the incarceration rate and not new ideas, but a change in approach. Heroux (2011), suggested possible policy solutions to reduce the mass incarceration. Some of these solutions are earlier release, a change in mandatory minimums, transfer to non-institutions facilities, the diversion from institutional facilities, and doing away with mandatory minimum laws. This could be the next step towards reducing mass
As stated previously the results of this study came with shock some value along with affirmation for many theorists. “Correctional officers work directly with inmates, and their perceptions of inmates either enhance or reduce the possibility of stress” (Misis, Kim, Cheeseman, Hogan, and Lambert, 2013). This study opened the door for psychologist to continue to research the ramifications of incarcerations in many realms and spectrums. The rapid deterioration of the mock inmates due to the immediate acceleration of aggression by the subject prison guards, enables psychologist to test the theory of inhumanity by ways of social behavior social
It is said that prison should be used for more serious crimes such as rape, assault, homicide and robbery (David, 2006). Because the U.S. Prison is used heavily for punishment and prevention of crime, correctional systems in the U.S. tend to be overcrowded (David, 2006). Even though prisons in the U.S. Are used for privies on of crime it doesn 't work. In a 2002 federal study, 67% of inmates that
During a freedom march on May 29, 1964 in Canton, Mississippi a boy by the name of McKinley Hamilton was brutally beaten by police to the point of unconsciousness. One of the witnesses of this event, and the author of the autobiography which this paper is written in response to, was Anne (Essie Mae) Moody. This event was just one of a long line of violent experiences of Moody’s life; experiences that ranged from her own physical domestic abuse to emotional and psychological damage encountered daily in a racist, divided South. In her autobiography Moody not only discusses in detail the abuses in her life, but also her responses and actions to resist them. The reader can track her progression in these strategies throughout the various stages of her life; from innocent childhood, to adolescence at which time her views from a sheltered childhood began to unravel and finally in adulthood when she took it upon herself to fight back against racial prejudice.
Chapman’s research shows evidence of 211 stabbings taking place in three years at one prison in Louisiana. Bloody riots, rape, robberies, and exhortation are just a few of the everyday occurrences that can be expected when entering a penitentiary.
Irwin G. Sarason and Barbara R. Sara, Abnormal Psychology: The Problem of Maladaptive Behavior,10th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002)
Prisons exist in this country as a means to administer retributive justice for those that break the laws in our society or to state it simply prisons punish criminals that are to receive a sentence of incarceration for more than one year. There are two main sub-cultures within the walls of prison the sub-culture of the Department of Corrections (which consists of the corrections officer, administrators, and all of the staff that work at the prison and go home at the end of their day) and the actual prisoners themselves. As you can imagine these two sub-cultures are dualistic in nature and this makes for a very stressful environment for both sides of the fence. While in prison, the inmates experience the same conditions as described in the previous
“It’s really clear that the most effective way to turn a nonviolent person into a violent one is to send them to prison,” says Harvard University criminologist James Gilligan. The American prison system takes nonviolent offenders and makes them live side-by-side with hardened killers. The very nature of prison, no matter people view it, produces an environment that is inevitably harmful to its residents.
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
...ly makes for fresh conversation among inmates, at the same time truly violent acts remind the prisoners of the harsh realities of prison life.