Ever since the beginning of the prison system, people could argue that riots were the cause of either the guards being too strict or the guards being too lenient. When analyzing the California hunger strike of 2013, and why so many inmates decided to participate, we can clearly see inmate-balance theory at work. The California hunger strike lead by Todd Ashker is best explained by inmate-balance theory because the criminal justice system was too harsh by giving confirmed gang members life sentences in solitary confinement. Inmate-balance theory can be defined as “maintain[ing] that riots and related forms of collective protest occur when prison officials take abrupt action to reassert control” (Useem and Reisig, p.320). When we take this definition …show more content…
When sentenced to the SHU, inmates are in their cell for 23 hours a day, with 1 hour left to do recreation in a box. Todd Ashker, the leader of the hunger strike, describes how he has not “had a normal face-to-face conversation with another human being in 23 years” (Wallace-Wells). Most of the prisoners kept in the Pelican Bay SHU began exhibiting mental breakdown as a result of the isolation (Wallace-Wells). If prisoners were kept in a normal cell, or at least were able to interact with other humans face-to-face, then they might not have had to resort to the hunger strike. The harsh conditions of the SHU are what made the prisoners decided to nonviolently protest, which further proves the presence of inmate-balance theory. In conclusion, the California hunger strike, led by Todd Ashker, was brought on by the harsh conditions that inmates face while indefinitely imprisoned in solitary confinement. The unfair practice, decided by Judge Thelton Henderson in 1995, was something the prisoners couldn’t do outright to stop, so they turned to non-violent hunger strikes. This is concrete example on why the inmate-balance theory was present in the California hunger strike of 2013- giving confirmed gang members indefinite life sentences in solitary confinement was too harsh, thus needing
On March 15, 2017, at 9:10 p.m at the California Correctional Center located in Susanville,CA a riot occured resulting in the injuries of six prison guards and one inmate. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stated that an inmate had assaulted an officer on Wednesday in the dining hall of the Prison, around 30 other prisioners rushed to the scene and began assaulting the officers with physical force and the use food trays against the officers. Officers regained control of the dining hall with the use of physical force, pepper spray and non-lethal projectiles to overcome the riot in minutes. Their were four correcitonal officers who were treated for minor cuts and bruises and a couneslor was treated for
Prison staff in this facility believed that they had the power to “lay hands on or strike an inmate in order to enforce compliance with a lawful discretion” (Conover, 2000). In reality, this would mean that if an inmate didn’t do what a guard wanted in the manner in which he or she wanted the task to be executed, that guard now had the authority to use physical force on the noncompliant
The Jail and The New Jim Crow both describe how our justice system is generally based on people’s conceptions of things, and how our own justice system is creating a new way of discriminating people by labeling, incarcerating the same disreputables and lower class that have come to be labeled as the rabble class. In chapter two, of The New Jim Crow, supporting the claim that our justice system has created a new way of segregating people; Michelle Alexander describes how the process of mass incarceration actually works and how at the end the people that we usually find being arrested, sent to jail, and later on sent to prison, are the same low class persons’ with no knowledge and resources. These people commit petty crimes that cost them their
In 1968 Robin Woods was convicted of two counts of felony breaking and entering. He was sentenced to 16 years at Maryland Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison, for his nonviolent crimes. He recalls the atmosphere of MCI being both tense and racially charged. Amid reports of overcrowding and brutality from guards, a severe riot ensued adding an additional charge and 7 more years to Woods’ sentence. Our prison system neglects people’s mental and emotional needs, and treats them with contempt, yet expects respect and obedience in return.
From healthcare to personal safety, inmates are suffering illnesses, abuse, excessive sentences, and maltreatment at an astronomical rate. There has been a vast debate on the issue. There are many arguments for lesser prison sentences and better prison conditions. Mass Incarceration on Trial, A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America, written by Jonathan Simon, illustrates how our nation has become far removed from treating prisoners as human beings who deserving dignity and our nation has failed to properly address this grossly flawed prison system; particularly California. We as a society know very little about mass incarceration and the atrocities that happen behind the concrete walls of the numerous prisons in
On November 11th 2015, Duke University’s Prison Network Series brought Lisa Gunther to discuss the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes. The event titled ‘A Critical Phenomenology of Solidarity & Resistance in the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes’ focused on the theory and structure of solitary confinement, how it affected the inmates confined and the hunger strikes that resulted. This essay will include a brief description of Lisa Gunther ’s talk and a particular focus on the areas that I found most stimulating and relevant to my AAAS course. Gunther commenced her talk with the background of solitary confinement in the Pelican Bay State Prison.
Many people, before reading this article, might not have been aware of the rapid increase of incarceration rates and the overcrowding issue. This appeals to the reader’s sense of logic by stating that the vast majority of them are nonviolent because it shows them that that is where the overcrowding issue resides. This gets the readers thinking that alternative ways of dealing with nonviolent offenders might be necessary to solving the issue in the criminal justice system. Zuckerman makes the reader understand that reforming the prison system is a reasonable solution to the many problems generated by non-violent offenders being imprisoned. Not only does the author make the reader aware of the issue, but he provides a logical solution for it.
Mass Incarceration: Transforming an Unconstitutional System. Guild Notes, 40(4), 12. Brad Broussard in his article, Mass
Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.
Some common symptoms associated with isolation are insomnia, a lack of appetite, and trembling. These can escalate to heart palpitations, which is a tell-tale sign that the punishment has gone too far. Despite these warnings, the incline in suicides tells us that changes in our current laws need to happen to force preventative measures onto staff in federal prisons. A study occurred in 1951 at McGill University in which a paid group of voluntary graduate students stayed in a confinement room, to conduct a study on sensory deprivation. The plan was to observe these students for 6 weeks, nevertheless not one of the students lasted for more than 7 days.
Our prison system is nothing more than a people mill, where more than hundreds of individuals go in for the crimes they commit, and they do not necessarily come out. Policymakers and the public see mass incarceration as a useful tool for a swift and stern justice system but mass incarceration, in fact, has a negative impact on crime and carries collateral consequences with it. Mass incarceration and
In the article “Even Prisoners Must Have Hope”, Richard Stratton (the author) talks about his thoughts on the federal prison system in America. Stratton himself had served 8 years in jail for smuggling marijuana. He strongly advises not to make the prisons even worse than they already are. The harsh conditions and other peoples’ vengeful attitudes toward criminals only make the violence and crime continue. According to Stratton, instead of improving the harsh conditions and trying to rehabilitate and help prisoners that could lead to peace, our society inflicts more pain and punishment, enforcing a violent cycle.
In Adam Gopnik 's piece “Caging of America,” he discusses one of the United States biggest moral conflicts: prison. Gopniks central thesis states that prison itself is a cruel and unjust punishment. He states that the life of a prisoner is as bad as it gets- they wake up in a cell and only go outside for an hour to exercise. They live out their sentences in a solid and confined box, where their only interaction is with themselves. Gopnik implies that the general populace is hypocritical to the fact that prison is a cruelty in itself.
Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.
Few remember that not just the indicted are changed in the prison system-the authority figures become different, too. Thousands of people go to detention facilities and stay there from minutes to decades, but the authority figures stay there with every influx of new prisoners. The wardens, in particular, are a monumental part of the system. They regulate the prisoners causing them to adapt to situations, whether positive or negative. Samuel Norton, the warden in the adaptation of Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, is embodied by the atmosphere of the prison.