The Pros And Cons Of Entering Lockdown

Before getting into studying the field of criminal justice I learned that my previous knowledge about prisons and prisoners was either completely wrong or very incomplete. My first original belief was that the worst kind of people were in jail. That if you walked into a jail every person that you would see there are the worst of the worst. Another original belief was that if someone was in prison then they did something that put them there. These original beliefs came from the typical sources you get growing up, your parents, school teachers, and peers. Growing up I was taught that prison was where the terrible people went and it’s a scary place that you don’t want to be. But the moment that impacted me the most about prisoners was my senior

Maximum and Supermax prison is designed for full attention to security and surveillance. In these institutions, the inmate’s lives are organized into a militaristic approach to control the inmate’s movements, by limiting/eliminating situations that could lead to a breakdown in discipline like escaping, harming themselves, others and/or prison staff. The facilities have concrete walls that stand 20 - 30 feet high and have been sunk deep into the ground to prevent prisoners from tunneling. The fences are electrically charged and lined with barbed wire. Unlike medium and minimum facilities which can have multiple occupants to a room, max and supermax facilities can only contain one occupant because these inmates pose a threat to other inmates.

..no fences, no bars on the windows, no detention sash. Guards do not wear uniforms..the buildings look like a motel. Inmates may use telephones to call anyone anytime, they have keys to their own individual rooms, they have their own money, and they wear their own clothes. There are no restrictions on hours of watching television or visiting in the day rooms or

There are three models of prisons that have been prominent in American since the early 1940’s: custodial, rehabilitative, and reintegration. Each model is designed differently based on its overriding goal, and this affects the physical design, policies, and programs that are implemented within each of the models.

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

Just as Conover explains and reveals, it takes years to become a professional in the field. Reading Conover’s text, gives a lot of important information and was something unique that I haven't read before. Before reading New Jack, I didn't imagine that working in a prisons could be so difficult. Hearing the information from someone that has experienced prisons in the United States and the ways facilities, corrections officers, and inmates function with one another, has helped me get a better

After listening to and or reading the transcripts of Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax by Michael Montgomery, one gets a glimpse of prison life, sociological issues inmates and staff face, and the subculture of prison life faced by staff and prisoners alike on a daily basis. However, instead of delving completely in to the situational circumstances of prisoner life, it is more important to understand the history of this Supermax prison and why it was constructed to begin with. Further, it is important to understand the philosophy of the need for the Secure Housing Unit, which is the most secure and isolated portion of Pelican Bay Prison.

The new prisoner is then admitted into their “pod”. Rather than keep ALL the inmates together in one large group, they are broken down into smaller groups. Each group lives in their own pod. Each pod had a central living space and outside fresh air lounge. The individual cells surround the living area and there are three additional floors that overlook the central living space that you reach by inside stairs. Each level contains approximately 10 individual cells. Some information was not available to us (the public) as it is confidential. Information such as how many Officers work in a pod per shift. The inmates are served their meals in the central living space and it the Correctional Officers job to count everything they take. Items such as jam containers, plastic knives and forks are made into weapons by the ingenious inmates. After they are given their meals and have had time to go to the gym, they are then put back into their cell for the night.

In the United States of America, there are several different types of incarceration facilities that criminal offenders, both convicted and accused my end up. The two most distinguishable different facilities post-conviction are the state prison systems and the federal bureau of prisons. These units house a wide array of criminals, from the lowest of low scum to the high profile “Hannibal Lector” types. The range of crimes is equally different, from sexual offences and aggravated murder charges all of the way down to so called white collar crimes and too many DWI’s. In short, the intricate designs and diversity contribute to an experience all to its

Hassine begins his narrative as he is entering prison but this time as an inmate. Prior to his incarceration, Hassine was an attorney (Hassine, 2011). Even then as an attorney, the high walls of prison intimated Hassine (Hassine, 2011). As Hassine was being processed into the system, he expressed how he systematically became hopeless from the very prison structure itself as well as because of the intimidation he felt by uniforms. Prisons of the past actually had a goal to aid individuals through rehabilitation by instilling new values in order to correct the wrongs that one may have committed during their lifetime but today this is no longer true. . Hassine draws colorful depictions of how dim and unfamiliar a prison can be in which instills fear in an individual soon as he or she

Have you ever noticed anything that is exactly like something else? No, me either! But as a criminal justice student, I’m being forced to compare one of the things that we’ll probably see in our everyday life. That one thing is the difference between two jails. As we were visiting the two different jails I noticed a lot of things that were different like building, the security, the visitation area, the prison area, the holding cells, the work rooms, there were a lot of things that were different. So I’ll like to take the time to tell you about three of the things that stood out to me.

This prison had cells that were 8 by 12 feet, and prisoners were kept in them for 23 hours of the day. When the prisoner was given their hour of exercise inside of another small area, they were not able to have any contact with other inmates or outside world. The officers would use a small slot in the door to give the inmates their food, and there was the very minimum light that came from a small window in the cell (Kupers, 2017). The reasoning that this prison was first started was to hopefully rehabilitate an inmate through the use of being isolated from everyone else. The use of isolation was supposed to give the prisoner time to think about the crime they committed. Shortly after the Philadelphia prison started, a second prison that used solitary confinement as a form of punishment opened. The Auburn Prison of New York gave the nation another view of solitary confinement. It was said to not be as harsh as Philadelphia but it was still considered a tough punishment. When a prisoner would be around another inmate or guard, they had to be

At any given time, a single corrections officer, can expect to be outnumbered by upwards of 400 inmates (Conover, 2011). It can be chilling to work in the midst of hundreds of inmates, some of which initiate attacks and inappropriate relationships. However, other issues have impacted the psychological health and physical safety of the staff. Detrimental factors have included heavy workloads, the prisons physical structure, and a lack of support from both peers and superiors. Each workplace issue has been in addition to role problems, specifically role ambiguity and role conflict (Schaufeli & Peeters, 2011). It is believed that anyone of these undesirable facets of prison should be enough to deter the public from attempting to enter such

The psychological well being of inmates is pushed to the limits under pressure of complete isolation. Post lockdowns inmates face prolonged psychological effects routinely requiring heavy drugs and dosages to maintain sanity. In the story Lockdown, numerous inmates did not have the ability to overcome the mental stress and discomfort relieving themselves of the stress by committing suicide. Lockdowns express the power the prison has over the inmates, confirming they are superior of inmate's. Hopkins has undergone countless lockdowns, in return they are beginning to destroy his mental health. Through analyzing lockdown isolation in lockdown, Evan D. Hopkins stresses the detrimental impact on inmates psychological

The guards were not given teaching, so they had to figure everything out for themselves. The guards had a slight limit to what they could do physically, but besides that, they had complete freedom to use whatever means necessary. Guards often held “Counts”, where the guards would wake up the prisoners, and make them read aloud their assigned prison identification. The reason for these