Exemplification Essay: Life In Prison

In 1971, 1 out of 12 Americans were incarcerated. Since that time, the prisoner ratio has exponentially increased; today, that ratio is 1 out of 51. With that number continuing to rise, many problems result out of it. Prison overcrowding is a growing problem in the United States. The number of people being taken in has regressive effects on the purpose behind imprisonment. Though the prisoners are not there for a comfortable and enjoyable stay, ethical rights are being ignored. How can a someone carry out their sentence rightfully if the focus is taken away from them and put on the judgment of the courts and justice system? Prison overcrowding is without a doubt problematic and inhumane. The mandatory sentencing laws, lack of attention on

Introduction: How many of us have taken a pain reliever? Did you know 45% of people who used heroin were also addicted to prescription opioid painkillers. The use of heroin is drastically growing; many people are dying of overdose or getting killed over the drug. For example, my aunt works in a hospital, she read the report of a 23-year-old her patient that had ate 46 bags of heroin and now was in intensive care.

Philip Zimbardo questioned, “What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?” (Zimbardo, 1971) In 1971 a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment on the effects prison has on young males with the help of his colleague Stanley Milgram. They wanted to find out if the reports of brutality from guards was due to the way guards treated prisoners or the prison environment. Zimbardo offered $15 per day for two weeks to take part in the experiment. The experiment was held in the basement of Stanford University Psychology building; they turned it into a mock prison.

Supermax prisons are generally designed to house the most misbehaved inmates, and these inmates are generally locked away in solitary confinement for a majority of their stay (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Mears (2015) mentions that supermax prisons are designed for punishment and seclusion, but these inmates can be released from supermax prisons. Two common ways to get released from supermax are through good behavior and being released from a prison term. Most supermax inmates have proven they cannot conduct themselves as model prisoners, but they are given another chance through showing good behavior in adverse conditions. If the prisoners are unable to change their behavior, they may complete their sentence in the supermax prison. Supermax

Drug abuse is the habitual taking of addictive or illegal drugs in order to feel a euphoria, treat pain, or help with sleeping disorders. Drug abuse is a chronic brain disease that causes drug use despite the harmful consequences to the user and the people around them. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the dystopian society portrayed is oblivious to the impact of the censorship around them. Books are banned and if found, they are burned along with their houses. The people in this society do not have time to think about anything because they are constantly surrounded by the constant chaos of loud noises on commercials or televisions and are over stimulated. Addiction and drug abuse is used as a way to escape the harsh problems in society.

Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and

Imagine you are a fifty-one year old man and you have not eaten in two days, and you resort to theft. Stealing a fifty-cent package of doughnuts from the corner store. You are at your home when suddenly officers burst in and arrest you. Then during your court proceedings, the prosecutor brings up two prior convictions from thirty years earlier so he can charge you under mandatory sentencing laws. This means a life sentence without parole over a fifty- cent pack of doughnuts. Though this scenario sounds too outrageous to be true, it happened to Robert Fassbender, a California man. States Attorney Yraceburn stated," Because of his (Fassbender) history of recidivism and the number of crimes he 's been convicted of," Fassbinder

Incarceration rates have skyrocketed over the last forty years-- which could be interpreted as good or bad. There have been many questions surrounding incarceration directly being linked to a drop in crime rate: both positive and negative. One pair of economical authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, approached this concept from a mostly-positive outlook: the high incarceration rate was responsible for one-third of the crime drop in the 1990’s (123-124). The authors use high incarceration rate along with innovative police strategies, plummet of the crack market, and aging in the population to make a base argument of reasons for crime drop; however, the main argument they utilize is the legalization of abortions (Levitt and Dubner 120-121,

To begin with, the overall rates of incarceration in America is staggering as a whole. The population has grown exponentially during the last few decades, raising each and every year due to more opportunities in crime committing. Not only the raising rates occur on a federal level, but a state level as well. Discovered by John Hagan, a research professor and co-director of the center on law and globalization at the American Bar Foundation, and Traci Burch, assistant professor in political science at Northwestern University and Research professor at American Bar Foundation, that between the years 1920 and 1975, the state and federal prison population represented about 1 in 1,000, where as by 2001, .69 percent of the population was in prison

A jury found Maria Guadalupe Rubio-Mendoza guilty of conspiracy to possess, with intent to distribute, one kilogram or more of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), and 846 (count one); and possession, with intent to distribute, one kilogram or more of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), and 18 U.S.C. § 2 (count two).

Programs such as PDMP’s (Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs) have been put into place to help stop this drug abuse. Students in schools across the country are being educated about drugs through programs such as CSCP (Caring School Community Program), GGC (Guiding Good Choices), LST (Life Skills Training), and SFA (Skills for Adolescence). Detoxification treatment centers are meant to slowly help people get off of their Heroin addiction but are also mostly linked with relapse. There are plenty of Treatment centers in Philadelphia, all over the city but yet still so many drug addicts, and drug overdoses each year. Treatment centers have a waiting list that they put people on when they don 't have enough beds to sleep anymore people. This is something i strongly disagree with. If a person is willing to get help and have taken the initiative to go and get it, they should never be denied the help simply because there is not enough room to hold them. If a person is there and willing to get help they should last resort be offered to sleep on the floor. As long as they are getting the help they need to recover. Last Stop is a treatment center in the middle of Kensington Philadelphia. They will take any person willing to get help regardless of how much space they have available. They don 't take funding from the government but only fund on donations from anyone willing to donate. Statistics show that the amount of deaths from Heroin overdose is continually growing. This shows that the policies that the government has previously put in place and continues to put in place are not working. I have a close friend who 's mother grew up in Philadelphia, by the age of 18 she was already addicted to Heroin. Her mother had died of a Heroin overdose when she was 2 years old. From that point on she was raised in a drug free household. When she reached middle school she began to hang out with a crowd who soon got into drugs.

The article “Life Sentences”, Christopher Shea describes various statements which I strongly agree with and have a strong position towards, such as the difficulties ex-convicts go through in attempting to find a living for themselves after prison and the amount of money America invests in prison.

Life In Prison by Reilly was an exceptional read and the information was fairly recent while the last year he was a correctional officer in 2007. Reilly has been a correctional officer for a little over 6 years and while in those six years he has worked at two different prisons; a prison in Pennsylvania and Maine State Prison. Since these were both high security prisons, these offenders ranged from 20-65 years old, some older than that, race varied but predominantly black, both of these prisons had well over 900 inmates that includes around 800 males and over 100 females. These crimes that inmates committed were all felonies, with ranging from drug distribution to murderers. The next book is Inside: Life Behind Bars In America by Santos. Santos

Everyone knows the jail system is flawed in many ways. Two men can get charged with the same crime and same situation but are sentenced to different lengths in jail. Discrimination is common today in the jail system. Countless innocent people are impacted by unfair jail sentencing; fortunately, the government is attempting to make a difference by lowering minimum and maximum jail sentencing.

My community has been suffering from a drug issue having to do with Heroine for some