Prisoners don't suffer enough...

Really? Are you sure? Ok, maybe you are sure, but how much thought did you put into it? Prisons have been around for about 200 years in the United States, and we've yet to answer that question.

Many people feel that prisoners have it too easy. They hear about prisoners furthering their education, watching television and participating in rodeos. They read about prisoners’ free medical care, three meals a day and a roof over their heads. They come away thinking prisoners are pampered, on tax dollars no less, and they get angry. Very angry. They want to know how these criminals deserve an easier life than them, after all, they themselves are hardworking, productive taxpayers who don’t have a criminal record. They ask why the “bad” are rewarded, while the “good” are punished.

Prisoners may or may not be “bad,” and tax-payers may or may not be “good.” The truth is that prisons typically come from of our least privileged class of citizens; our most socio-economically deprived. It very well may be that prison poses a significant improvement in the quality of their lives. Does that mean that we should treat them less-humanely than that to which they are accustomed? What would that say of us? Prison may be better than the tenements many grew up in, than the untreated illnesses many suffered, than the hunger most endured daily as children and it may be a temporary relief from the lack of legitimate opportunities to survive and prosper (yeah, unattainable but ever pursued American Dream). But prison is not “easy street” for anyone. Prison is not living in Mom’s basement and letting her do your cooking and laundry. Hollering at you when supper is ready.

Prison is about deprivations. What prisoners receive is based on constitutional rights (42 USC 1983)- edible food, a dry clean bed. It’s based on the safety for guards as well as the prisoners - riots can break out over the seemingly smallest issues. And, lastly it seems, it is based on rehabilitation - or at least it began that way with the Quakers. The constitution provides rights to everyone, some of which, but not all – no, not all – are surrendered at the door. The most evident rights surrendered are those  provided in the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Beyond that, prisoners are also deprived of liberty, goods & Services, autonomy, heterosexual contact, and security(i). Knee-jerk reactions to the rhetoric of others are worthless. Considering what prison must be like isn’t having empathy for a criminal, it is a necessary process in having a qualified opinion on the topic. So consider what these deprivations really mean and how you would feel in this situation.

The loss of liberty means confinement. In its extreme, this might be days spent in Solitary or years spent in a Super-Max facility. At its most lenient, this might mean a line rather than razor-wire forms the boundary that an inmate cannot cross. In either case, the weight of having no freedom of movement, no option to visit an ill relative or even buy shampoo is heavy and persistent. Yes, they “should have thought about that” before committing their crime, but that doesn’t lessen the impact.

The loss of access to goods and services affects a person’s identity. Consider how you’re your possessions help you to define yourself. All Americans define themselves in part, by their possessions. In prison, instead of pride in having a nice house, car, and clothes, there is shame in being assigned a number, a jumpsuit, and a toothbrush. Again, they should have thought of this, but the impact isn’t lessened.

The loss of autonomy is the loss of choices in daily routine. Prisoners are told when to get up, when to go to bed, when and what to eat, what kind of exercise they can access, what their surroundings will look like. There is very little in their lives that they can choose.

With the exception of conjugal visits, sex is prohibited in prison, however, according to a federal study, 12% of all federal prisoners admitted to having had homosexual sexual activity. Sexual urges are biological in nature and refraining from sex for extended periods of time may be one of the most difficult requirements posed upon prisoners. One major way in which humans define themselves is through contact with the opposite sex, so like most of these deprivations, the loss of heterosexual contact adds to the loss of a prisoner’s identity.

The loss of security in prison is staggering. Almost half of the prisoners questioned had been victims of assault, theft, and property damage (to what few possessions they have) within the six months preceding the interview. In prison, there’s no option to move to a safer neighborhood, to secure your personal space, to avoid certain areas that pose a danger.

The final consideration to be made, unquestionably, is not, “Is prison harsh enough.” The final question is, “Who will they be when they get out?” Will they have learned? Will they have legitimate opportunities that they didn’t before, or will they have learned new illegitimate tricks and be “hardened” from the prison experience?

Punishing severely might make society in general feel better initially, and there are folks out there who can feel better about themselves because they’ve never been to prison. Those folks – the unenlightened majority, it would seem - don’t like hearing about education or therapy programs. But does purely severe punishment and nothing else truly serve even those members of society in the long run? Equate it with this scenario: Going to the dentist may not feel good at the time, but it doesn’t take wisdom to know that healthier teeth without pain makes the trip worth it, for years to come. How we handle criminals shouldn’t be any different.

If you're one of the unenlightened, give the dentist a try, it's not that bad; in case you hadn't hear, black cats aren't really bad luck.

(i) Whitehead, Jones, Braswell. Exploring corrections in America, 2nd edition (2007). p 243.

Brandi Pool
A Texas Criminology Major