El’s Sphere

The prison population grows each day, and each day that passes little is being done to combat the issue of overcrowding/overpopulation. Including issues of human rights violations, inmates having little to none important necessities, lack of programs, straying away from rehabilitation and focusing on retribution, etc. A large number of people have committed offenses that were non-violent and a large number of people in prison have been wrongly convicted, this is part of the issue I mentioned in the beginning. What is the criminal justice system doing? The increase in incarceration in America has its own effects in society, hurts communities and families, and it will become a reality that’ll leave little room for change. To be frank, I do not want to live in that reality, where husbands and fathers receive extreme sentencing for drug charges. In my opinion, we have a racially biased justice system, so race plays an even larger role in sentencing. However, despite all the negatives, many people across America have been working to change our criminal justice system. There are organizations that work to keep fewer Americans out of prison without impacting public safety. 

I have researched many organizations, the ones that interested me the most include: The Center for Young Women’s Development, Books Through Bars, and Innocence Project. Many of these organizations continue to advocate for reform in the criminal justice system. 

1. The Center for Young Women’s Development was founded in 1993, and is a leadership and advocacy organization. YWFC’s included on their page the issue of poverty and how poverty is a key driver of incarceration and recidivism. Also, YWFC strives to provide economic opportunities for formerly incarcerated and systems-impacted people. Through this organization, they intend to break the  cycles of poverty, exploitation, and incarceration. 
2. Books Through Bars is an all-volunteer non-profit organization. Books Through Bars believes that  “systemic social, educational, and economic inequality leads to relentless cycles of crime and mass incarceration.” Their work aims to reverse the effects of injustice and incarceration on individuals. BTB offers free books and educational material to prisoners who ask for these books. 
3. The Innocence Project was  founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck. This organization strives to “exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.” 

In recent events, rapper Meek Mill’s criminal justice reform group is donating “100,000 face masks to some of the nation’s most notorious jails and prisons.” Meek Mill has backed an organization that I discovered a couple days ago, the organization is called REFORM Alliance. REFORM Alliance’s mission  is to dramatically reduce the number of people who are unjustly under the control of the criminal justice system. The reason behind this donation is because of the current global pandemic and its effects on prisoners/prisons. In my previous blog I mentioned the significance of what would happen if an outbreak happened. Hundreds and thousands of prisons are bound to become ill and correctional officers are at risk too. This donation would offer prisoners some form of protection against the virus. It is about time that celebrities use their platform to help society and communities who are affected by the criminal justice system. 

Throughout my blogs, I discussed various reasons as to why prison reform is strongly needed. I took a dive into what prison reform really is: an effort to improve the conditions of what inmates go through, provide different aspects of rehabilitation, and it’s able to benefit the criminal justice system. Then, I went into detail about incarcerated women in America and how the current prison system is violating their basic rights. In regards to the United States and their prison system, another blog I published discussed the difference between the U.S. and how Norway runs their prisons.

Throughout my blogs, there is a specific theme that becomes repetitive, the growing concerns around why the criminal justice system continues to fail. The pattern of my writing did not seem to change throughout my blogs, I find interesting topics to discuss and I discuss 🙂 I want to revisit my recent blog, which was supposed to be posted for next week, highlighting issues regarding the prisons and the coronavirus. What are countries currently doing to slow down/ or stop the spread of the coronavirus within prisons? I do not believe there is enough being done to help combat this potential outbreak.

I enjoy blogging about the significant and current issues America faces, as well as what other countries are doing regarding prison reform. It was interesting researching the different tactics used by other countries and what sorts of programs are in place. I am passionate about equality and justice, I believe it shows a lot throughout my work. These posts will benefit my research paper because I have so many different ways discussing prison reform and the many aspects attached to it. 

The COVID-19 virus has spread massively throughout the globe, influencing mass hysteria and causing fear to rise in society. The COVID-19 viral disease that has swept into at least 114 countries (or more) and killed more than 4,000 people and is now officially a pandemic as the World Health Organization announced. Pandemics are known to be large-scale outbreaks of an infectious disease that can greatly increase how many people will be affected and the mortality rates. A virus such as the COVID-19 has impacted a wide geographic area and caused significant social, political, and economic disruption.

I would say this seems to increase disorder within society. Different groups of individuals have become infected more than others. Elderly, people who are suffering from other illnesses, men, etc., are at high risk of contracting this virus. Public places around the world carry lots of germs and bacteria, and it’s usually crowded – people are trying to open doors with their elbows, avoid grabbing handles, rubbing down desks. This virus seems to spread fast in large populated areas – how will COVID-19 impact the large populated prisons within America?

The coronavirus has the potential to cause an outbreak in jails and prisons, and yes- this could turn into a nightmare. The evidence I have thoroughly gathered indicates that prisons are not ready to handle a pandemic.

Prisons are the perfect setting for a virus to spread because prisons are roughly overpopulated within the United States, the coronavirus will spread like wildfire. In a prison, multiple people can be packed into a single cell. There is no space for social distancing or other recommendations that experts have made to combat this virus. 

This massive outbreak can potentially infect or kill hundreds or thousands of people in prison. The virus can also spread to communities nearby prisons. The spread of this virus can pose major threats to prisoners. If a large majority of the prison population needed medical care, it will be difficult to provide this care because jails and prisons can’t provide it. Facilities can either deny or delay basic care to individuals who seriously need it. The delays and the denied help can spark a further spread of this virus. In the beginning of my blogs, I mentioned the lack of access prisoners have to basic needs that they deserve, and this proves my point. 

The interesting part of this is, policies have been put in place to handle the spread of influenza. However, there are NO policies around what to do if prisons spread the virus or ways to slow down this spread. These are the issues that need to be discussed. This is a real-life issue that is currently happening as we speak. The biggest issue is policymakers and society are not talking about this specific issue. Time and time again prisoners are treated as if they are not humans too. The individuals who go in and out of visitations, correctional officers who work in crowded prisons are subject to being affected by this virus, and then it’s spread to the outside world. Let’s talk about it… instead of brushing the topic off, this is what society has been doing to other issues regarding prisoners. Now is not the time. All communities of people matter, even the ones that are overlooked. 

Prisons all over the world have different ways of how they want to run their prison systems. What do you think of when you hear the word ‘prison’ ? Space as small as a single dorm room, smelly, dirty, overpopulated, chaos, etc. However, these single characteristics do not apply to how Norway runs their prisons. It is extremely different from the United States in so many ways. U.S. prisons are focused on security, reflecting a sense of culture of punishment. In Norway, they have tasks to turn criminals into “good neighbors”, with a main focus on rehabilitation instead of retribution. Those are huge differences in how countries view prisons and the treatment of prisoners. 

There is a significant amount of data as to why Norway chooses to run their prisons in a different manner. This is the reason why most U.S. prisons and state corrections, between North Dakota to Oregon and even Pennsylvania, have sent representatives to Norway to understand exactly why prisoners are being treated fairly, and prisons run accordingly. It was a shocking find, that states within the U.S. are taking interest in changing their tactics. States would come back with different lessons they’ve learned and apply it to American prisons.

Throughout history, we have seen the criminal justice system in the U.S. breaking, failing our citizens, and this becomes an international discussion. Countries like Norway look to the United States as an example of what not to do in terms of the criminal justice system. 

However, Norway’s prison system wasn’t always as great as it is now. Surprisingly, Norway followed the same principles as America’s, adopting a huge emphasis on punishment and tons of security. The challenges inside the prisons started to grow and Norway knew that those principles were not beneficial. Norway decided to reevaluate after a rise of violence, high recidivism rates, and political pressures to solve these problems were increasing.

In the year of 1998, Norway made a sharp shift away from punishment to focus on rehabilitation. Norway placed much emphasis on helping inmates find jobs and homes upon their release. Sentences are shorter, they average around eight months. In the U.S, year of 2016, the average time served by prisoners was 2.6 years. In my discovery, I was surprised to find out that there are no life sentences in Norway. Also, inmates keep the same rights like other citizens. Prisoners have the ability to vote while in prison, but the U.S. strips prisoners of their basic rights, even voting. The U.S. makes sure that prisoners are treated like animals rather than human beings. Each prison in Norway offers education, drug treatment, mental health and training programs, so that inmates can be integrated back into society and flourish. These initiatives are lacking in the U.S. today.

In my findings, I revealed that taking away someone’s freedom is punishment enough. Prison  shouldn’t be categorised as cruel and prisons shouldn’t be cruel in general. Countries, such as Norway, will further make the change the world needs to see. Norway continues to seek to make the experience normal for inmates whereas the U.S. fails to provide their prisoners human decency. 

Recap of last week’s blog post includes: defining that prison reform is an effort to improve the conditions of what inmates go through, provide different aspects of rehabilitation, and it’s able to benefit the criminal justice system. Issues within prisons are often overlooked by the government. As much as I would love to continue to discuss what prison reform is, let’s talk about why it is necessary in regards to women who are incarcerated. 

Prison reform has the opportunity to bring attention to the concern female inmates have. For women who are incarcerated in America, it seems like practicing proper menstrual hygiene is almost impossible. In this blog we’ll discuss how badly women in the prison system are being treated. Studies have shown that women make up most of the prison population, 6.4% of adult inmates. Incarcerated women feel disgusted, ill, and humiliated because they do not have access to pads or tampons, or proper hygiene necessities. This is a violation of their constitutional right to basic cleanliness. Cases that are relevant to this violation are: Carver vs. Knox County Tennessee in 1989, Carty vs. Farrelly in 1997, and Atkins vs. County of Orange in 2005, all ruled that failing to provide or denying access to sanitary items violates the Eighth Amendment. The cases I have mentioned above indicates that prisons need to practice good hygiene and provide necessities needed for both men and women. 

The women who are facing these troubling conditions in prisons witness that being able to reform prison conditions and establishing some form of menstrual equity is a challenging task. Efforts that have been done to respond to these detailing prison conditions have been that a handful of senators and representatives are showing support. The issues women face in prisons are being recognized, but is it too late? Many of these representatives and senators introduced some form of legislation in 2017 to provide menstrual equity in federal prisons. The Senators involved include: Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kamala Harris (D-CA). They have introduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, it is to improve the treatment of federal prisoners. The bill proposed a plethora of reforms that were designed to improve the conditions of women in prisons, such as ending the shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant women, increasing visitations between mothers and their children, and increasing access to menstrual products. The reforms introduced show society that prisoners are still humans, despite the stereotype that all prisoners are evil.