This book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander has made me realized how the United State has one of the largest population in prison. In the novel, "Are Prisons Obsolete" by Angela Davis, she emphasizes the underlining problems faced within modern day prisons. The more arrest in the minority communities, mean more money towards their, This essay will discuss multiple different races and ethinicities to regard their population make up within the prison system. Imprisonment is one of the primary ways in which social control may be achieved; the Sage Dictionary of Criminology defines social control as a concept used to describe all the ways in which conformity may be achieved. Yet, as they represent an important source of labour and consumerism (Montreal's VitaFoods is mentioned as contracted in the 1990s to supply inmates in the state of Texas with its soy-based meat substitute, a contact worth $34 million a year. which covers the phenomenon of prisons in detail. "Prison Reform or Prison Abolition?" Summary Davis believes that in order to understand the situation with the prisons, you should remember your history. The words of the former President Bush clearly highlight the fear of the . The US has the biggest percentage of prisoner to population in the whole world. In consonance with the author, books had opened his eyes to new side of the world, During seventeenth century flogging was a popular punishment for convicted people among Boston's Puritans. The stories that are told in the book, When We Fight, We Win by Greg Jobin-Leeds, are of a visionary movement to reclaim our humanity. Proliferation of more prison cells only lead to bigger prison population. Nineteen states have completely abolished it (States with and without The Death Penalty). According to the book, the legislation was instituted by white ruling class who needed a pool of cheap laborers to replace the shortage caused by the abolition of slavery. Before that time criminals were mainly punished by public shaming, which involved punishments such as being whipped, or branded (HL, 2015). While listening to the poem, it leaves the feeling of wanting to know more or adding words to these opening lines. County Jail. The prisoners are only being used to help benefit the state by being subjected to harsh labor and being in an income that goes to the state. Grass currently works at the University of Texas and Gross research focuses on black womens experiences in the United States criminal justice system between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Violence in prison cells are the extension of the domestic violence. Imprisonment has not always been used for punishment, nor has it always thought about the prisoners themselves. Amongst the significant claims that support Davis argument for abolition, the inadequacy of prison reforms stands out as the most compelling. This book was another important step in that journey for me. We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. The State failed to address the needs of women, forcing women to resort to crimes in order to support the needs of their children. The author then proceeds to explore the historical roots of prisons and establishing connections to slavery. Although, it wasnt initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he couldve imagined at that time. Some of the struggles that Gopnik states in his article are mass incarceration, crime rate, and judges giving long inappropriate sentencings to those with minor crimes. In this journal, Grosss main argument is to prove that African American women are overpopulating prisons and are treating with multiple double standards that have existed for centuries. 162-165). As of 2008 there was 126,249 state and federal prisoners held in a private prison, accounting for 7.8 percent of prisoners in general. Prison population just keeps growing without any direct positive impact to the society. Disclaimer: Services provided by StudyCorgi are to be used for research purposes only. Get help and learn more about the design. 4.5 stars. My perspective about Davis arguments in chapter 5 are prisons obsolete she has some pretty good arguments. These people commit petty crimes that cost them their, Summary Of Are Prisons Obsolete By Angela Davis, Angela Davis, in her researched book, Are Prisons Obsolete? Daviss purpose of this chapter is to encourage readers to question their assumptions about prison. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to social, economic, and political problems. For example the federal state, lease system and county governments pay private companies a fee for each inmate. Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, and the debate about its abolition is the largest point of the essay written by Steve Earle, titled "A Death in Texas. Incarceration serves as a punishment for criminals due to their actions against the law. However, once we dive a little, In America we firmly believe in you do the crime you must do the time and that all criminals must serve their time in order of crime to be deterred. However, I was expecting more information on how to organize around abolition, and more detailed thoughts form Angela on what a world without prisons would look like. Supplemental understanding of the topic including revealing main issues described in the particular theme; Its disturbing to find out that in private prisons the treatment that inmates receive is quite disappointing. According to Alexander, Today, most American know and dont know the truth about mass incarceration (p. 182). Incredibly informative and a pretty easy read. Are Prisons Obsolete? StudyCorgi. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department. He is convinced that flogging of offenders after their first conviction can prevent them from going into professional criminal career and has more educational value than imprisonment. Naturally the prisons are filled with criminals who not only bring with them a record of past wrong but also an attitude of anger and or survival when they walk behind the walls of prison. Women who stand up against their abusive partners end up in prison, where they experience the same abusive relationship under the watch of the State. ), they have been fast growing in recent decades and taken advantage of for their corporate profit value - or another form of slavery. I would think that for private prisons the protection and the treatment would be better than prisons that arent private. Yet it does not. She made the connection that in our past; slavery was a normal thing just as prisons are today. While many believe it is ok to punish and torture prisoners, others feel that cruel treatment of prison. I've been watching/listening to her interviews, downloading cool looking pictures of her and essentially scouring through articles/speeches by and about her with the sole aim of stalking her intellectual development. Are Prisons Obsolete By Angela Davis Sparknotes. (Leeds 68). (2016, Jun 10). This Cycle as she describes, is a great catalyst towards business and global economics. Crime is the cause of this establishment, but what are the effects of incarceration on convicts, their relations, and society? Its written very well, it doesn't oversimplify anything, yet at the same time Davis' style is very approachable and affective. With that being said the growth in the number of state and federal prisoners has slowed down in the past two to three years, there is still expected to be a huge increases in the number of inmates being held and with state and federal revenues down due to the recession, very few jurisdictions are constructing new prisons. Though the statistics outdate it (it's even worse now), the reasons why we should no longer have prisons are just as critical as when Angela Davis wrote this. However, today, the notion of punishment involves public appearances in a court and much more humane sentences. . Also, they are stationed in small cells chained up which is torturing them, and only the rich can afford to be sent to hospitals where they take much better care of. In the book Are Prisons Obsolete? I am familiar with arguments against the death penalty, and the desire to abolish it seems evident to me. Journal Response Angela Davis The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) Just a little over 30 years ago the entire prison . According to Davis, women make up the fastest-growing section of the prison population, most of them are black, Latina and poor. With such traumatic experiences or undiagnosed mental illnesses, inmates who are released from prison have an extremely hard time readjusting to society and often lash out and commit crimes as a result of their untreated problems. African American, Latino, Native American, and Asian youth have been portrayed as criminals and evildoers, while young African American and Latina women are portrayed as sexually immoral, confirming the idea that criminality and deviance are racialized. The book Are Prisons Obsolete? Author, Angela Y. Davis, in her book, analyses facts imprisonment in our society as she contrast the history, ideology and mythology of imprisonment between todays time and the 1900s, as capital retribution has not been abolished yet. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. The United States represents approximately 5% of the worlds population index and approximately 25% of the worlds prisoners due to expansion of the private prison industry complex (Private Prisons, 2013). The white ruling classes needed to recreate the convenience of the slavery era. Incarcerated folks are perhaps one of the most marginalized populations: "out of sight, out of mind", used as free labor, racialized, dehumanized, stripped of rights, etc. I was waiting for a link in the argument that never came. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the subjects themselves. Majority of the things that go on we never hear about or know about. Although prisoners still maintain the majority of rights that non-prisoners do according to the law, the quality of life in private prisons is strictly at the mercy of millionaires who are looking to maximize their profits (Tencer 2012). From a historical perspective, they make an impression of a plausible tradeoff between the cruel and barbaric punishments of the past and the need to detain individuals that pose a danger to our society. Interestingly, my perception does not align well with what I know about the prison system, which becomes evident after familiarizing myself with the facts from the book. It examines the historical, economic, and political reasons that led to prisons. He demonstrates that inmates are getting treated poorly than helping them learn from their actions. Have the US instituted prisons, jails, youth facilities, and immigrant detention centers to isolate people from the community without any lasting and direct positive impact to the society? We have come now to question the 13th amendment which states neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. This leads us now to question how we ourselves punish other humans.
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