When viewing the far greater treatment prisoner inmates get in the german prison system, it begins to raise many, many questions of our own. Honestly, my first question, though based on history was how does a country, specifically one we condemn continuously, has a better prison system than America? Though the bigger question is what single factor can we Americans learn to experience such a positive change? The main piece is that the German system doesn’t focus on retribution but rather on rehabilitation which is the biggest aspect that United states should focus on solely because it would raise the successfulness of the reentry rates within the American Society.

Along with changing the focus too rehabilitation would address many of the other factors that the German prison system enacts such as not caging these inmates as animals and giving them a living space that they can actually survive in, especially mentally. The quality of life increases and so may the desires to improve on the outside, there isn’t a single physical change within our system that would really change the issue of recidivism if there is no change to the core values. You can change the living standard but without the resources necessary they will only, most likely, continue their law breaking once they get out.

While I can understand the ideal of the “eye for an eye” stance that typically follow with support for the death penalty, someone close to you gets hurt or even killed and you want the person who did the act to feel the same way. I get that.

Even though I can understand the ideal of the death penalty, there are too many flaws with the application of the punishment. One being that there is a disproportionate likelihood that people of color will be charged with the death penalty over their white counterparts even if they both committed the same exact crime. This alone is enough for me to personally be against it.

While the racism of the death penalty is bad, the worst is the inhumane ways to kill a human person. The top 5 ways the United States will use to execute someone is; firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, execution, and lethal injection. Keep in mind that these methods are supposed to be swift and just, but if the person whose doing the execution is feeling a little malicious, the inmates death can last several minutes. If the firing squad “misses” their target, the heart, the inmate bleeds to death slowly, if the knot in a noose is position incorrectly the executed will asphyxiate slowly while violently contorting. Gas Chambers I shouldn’t even HAVE to explain the horrendous act that it is, WWII should have taught that enough, but for the sake of this, you witness eye popping, the skin turns purple and more for several minutes. Electrocution, is a very visibly painful execution method and this is, essentially, is an internal BBQ of the human body and this jolt can happen MULTIPLE TIMES until the heart stops. The final and most frequently use method, is lethal injection as the execution method, which is not painless either. Lethal injection is made of 3 drugs, one to put someone to sleep, to stop the breathing, and then to the heart; these drugs are very difficult to find. Members aren’t trained in finding a vein, which causes long delays and excruciating pain for the inmate as doctors take the “do no harm” oath and because of that sometimes the death can take much longer than a couple minutes which I think is cruel and unusual.

I, clearly, stand against the death penalty not just because it’s another source of racism and use of that tool. For me it is mostly the idea that it’s swift and just, that the states don’t really show the truth behind these executions and how much torture they actually are before death. It’s so bad that they probably wish for death during it, which again is basically torture and was made illegal in the united states. Anyways, I stand against it because even I think suffering in the jail conditions that exist is enough suffrage for crimes and its long lasting without being so physically torturous that someone is, more likely, to survive.

In the state of Maine, one of the longest recorded manhunts in the states history was in 1981 and was a 22 day long manhunt for prison escapee Arnold Nash (Convicted for robbery at this time) and Milton Wallace (Convicted for murder and rape), though the article doesn’t specifically say how these two inmates managed to escape the Mountain View Correction Facility in Charleston Maine. Though they were eventually caught and brought back to face punishment, this blog post isn’t about that escape.

The reference to the manhunt was to give basic context to who Arnold Nash is, an inmate who clearly led the police on one of the states biggest chases, someone that when they’re recaptured you want to keep an eye on. Well at some point after serving that sentence Nash had been released only to be arrested again in 1992 for murder and robbery. He was serving a shorten sentence of 27 years (rather than the original sentence of 45) when he was reported to have escaped again, September of 2018, at the age of 65, he had 14 months left. The only details for this third escape that was released to the public was the fact that Nash was last seen in an unfenced area on the facility grounds, this escape lasted 5 days. The punishment wasn’t released but it was most likely that he was given a new charge after his prior sentence. As the arresting deputy, and corrections commissioner Joseph Fitzgerald, believes that the escape was performed to add time to his sentence to live out the rest of his days in the system because thats were he considered his home.

Sources:

https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/convicted-murderer-arnold-nash-caught-after-prison-escape/97-595477339

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/arnold-nash-maine-murder-convict-recaptured-after-third-prison-escape

Putting myself in the shoes of a current prison warden, the issue of Covid-19, aka the coronavirus, and the continuous rise of its cases. As a prison warden during this time there is a genuine concern about the levels of sanitation, contact with loved ones, and connection to the elderly fellow inmates.

If I was a warden, the first thing I would do would be decriminalize the use of sanitation products, I would allow each prisoner going down the line based on age (Oldest first) to clean their cell with a cleaning solution with the supervision of a guard. It would not only protect them but also the guards they come into contact with, I would limit toilet paper to 3 rolls in a cell because of the shortage we face and request the same basic CDC guidelines be followed as much as possible. It makes no sense to be stricter on policies related to sanitation unless you want them and your workers to be infected and further spreading the virus to those even outside the prison.

In terms of visitations and contact to the outside world, I think, unfortunately I would removed the ability to have visitors for the duration to limit the spread as much as possible. In return I would allow them to make phone calls and email loved ones as much as many times a day but in hour intervals and rotation. Then simply have them wipe the phones and computers after every use with a disinfectant wipe. It would not only help with their mental health but also those on the outside who want to know what is happening to their loved ones.

One other idea I had was the rec time issue and trying to maintain social distancing, I think I would have a max of 20 prisoners in the yard at a time for an hour time slot with a constant rotation of groups and possibly individuals in the group, ideally anyways. Though there are many prisoners they couldn’t all get a rec time everyday, so I think i would loosen the restrictions on having books or TV time just because they wouldn’t be able to physically move as much as they might have been able to prior to the virus.

Of course these are in a scenario that was absolutely perfect and there wasn’t mistreatment or abuse or anything else, but unfortunately this isn’t the case and there is a real issue that wardens and prisoners alike are facing. Since Covid-19 is something that this world hasn’t seen in years, we aren’t equipped to handle this situation properly.

The state of Maine is not a state most people think of in terms of prison rates and even population. In total the state of Maine has 15 facilities within their corrections system, within these there are 6 state adult correctional facilities, 2 state youth development, 4 adult community correctional region offices, and 3 juvenile community correctional region offices. While these are mostly correctional facilities, there is also one re-entry program for women in Windham that isn’t mentioned on the map of the facilities because it is on the same land as a mixed correctional facility.

The state of Maine doesn’t have ‘county’ jails or correctional facilities, just because of the sheer size of the state and the lacking of a population the further north someone goes. Which makes sense, a majority of the population is further south more of the incarceration will be down there, the only piece that I thought was really interesting is that there is only one facilities with ‘prison’ which is the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. In my hometown of Windham, theres two facilities, one we refer to just as the jail and the other as re-entry building, and the Maine State Prison is almost a two hour drive. Just based on previous discussions its not a good financial to transport high risk inmates, so I spent a lot of time questioning what kind of people are incarcerated maybe 5 minutes down the road from my house because of this possible financial restriction. Just a curiosity I had while looking into this.

In terms of the age of the buildings, most of them, if not all, have been around since my parents were young and since I’ve been alive, the only building that is fairly new is the Women’s re-entry facility in Windham, in which that had been build in 2017 and is where all of the programming for local jails are conducted.

Maine DOC Link: https://www.maine.gov/corrections/adultfacilities/index.shtml

Prisons are known to be the epitome of punishment for committing crime, to make the perpetrator suffer and be deprived of all their liberties and freedoms, but when does the punishment turn into mental torture?

Suicide rates in the prison systems have been a recent hot topic, the general conversation nationally about mental health has opened up within the last few years and even more recently mental health within the prison systems. Personally, I find that the mental health in prisons is significantly less likely to be addressed and this doesn’t just include those who develop these issues while incarcerated it also includes people who get incarcerated with mental illnesses. Many people who become incarcerated suffer from some level of a mental illness and take medications; something that they no longer have access too while in prison and for some people that is a devastating and painful experience.

There are many cases across the country that the inmates are denied access to their medications that they have become so reliant on and as a result their health deteriorates to the point that suicide seems like a great, if not, their only option and most of them act on it. This doesn’t just stay within the prison facility either; some cases the pain and suffering they dealt with in prison follows them out into the world. It doesn’t take long for these feelings of depression and anxiety to take over the joys of being free again, or even being on parole, very quickly. The amount of mental torment these prisoners endure continue on, assuming though, that they do in fact get released at some point.

One thing I grew up learning my whole life was that America was this peak in terms of treatment and power to show and guide the rest of the world. As I grown up I’ve been presented the harsh reality it’s never been this ideal picture, we condemn people for treating their people so terribly but in America its ok, as long as they’re a criminal. It’s wrong and there so much change that is needed that its hard to pin point exactly where to start, If it were up to me though, I’d begin with treating the prisoners like they’re humans and need their basic necessities met. Though people say they are met, they have food, water, and shelter, but to which the level of these needs are met are not substantial to meet a humans needs and its the most basic step to make the changes to make prisoners feel more humane. After that it would be addressing the mental health crisis and about getting medication to those who need it or therapy who want it. Overall, there are basic changes to make that could also help play a role in how a prisoner could feel more human which could also result in some of these mental health changes that we see continuous issues with today.

In the article Arrest, Release, Repeat; how police and jails are misused to respond to social problems by Alexi Jones and Wendy Sawyer, they researched into local jails and how the populations of jails and the policing are being used to respond to incidents that shouldn’t have been addressed by the police to begin with. This research found that there was an absurd amount of people in 2017 were arrested more than two times (430,000) and the people arrested more than twice were disproportionately from marginalized and systematically oppressed people. The groups that were mainly targeted were low income, low education, people of color (Mostly African American) and those with greater health needs; substance abuse, moderate to serious mental illnesses, and no health insurance.

None of this was a huge surprise for me to read, this system was based around the arrest of the minority groups; from the poor to the color of someones skin. Though it is a widely known fact, it raises the question as to why we haven’t seen any changes. Jones and Sawyer concluded that they found with their researchers that many of the multi-offenders are just people who lack the resources to meet the proper medical and mental health professionals. At the very end of the article the authors make a couple suggestions as to how to help these groups of people to, hopefully, keep them out of the criminal justice system. The two I found to be the most interesting to me were the suggestion of a community focused health care for substance abuse, I think it would be incredibly beneficial if we focused a bit more towards that because not only would it allow for people to get help they need while also being supported by people who also struggle within their own community. The second recommendation that was made that interested me was the idea of “Housing First” which would provide a stable home before focusing on unemployment and medical care. I think this has a potential to do great things, as they noted, it could potentially pay for itself by minimizing the use of emergency resources and also by breaking this cycle of release and reincarnation.

Obviously both suggestions have their downside, between getting a community to agree upon and allow it and the legal properties that play into making these environments, as they are tax payer created, are hurdles within themselves. If we as a society managed to push something as big as these, I think we’d find a much more positive turnover rate in terms of less repeat incarceration and more productivity within the society.

Source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/repeatarrests.html