The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse~ Edmund Burke Edmund Burke and many other respected politicians and philosophers realized that when one group or corporation has too much power, the effect they can have on their enemies is far too great . In today’s world, power is all people need to create panic throughout the society. In The Treatment, by Suzanne Young, The Program is a corporation created to ensure teens safety from the suicidal epidemic. The main character, Sloane, realizes that The Program is erasing all of the suicidal teens harmful memories, leaving them with only memories of their childhood. Young warns society about the power of strong corporations in The Treatment. Based on Leonie Huddy’s article “The Public's …show more content…
First off, Young establishes how the epidemic is still such a huge concern in their society by stating, “The Program is the reason the epidemic is spreading. The pressure, the attention--it’s causing a whole new outbreak it hopes to contain by resetting the world. The Program is breeding suicide” (Young 319). The whole reason for the horrifying epidemic is because The Program is trying to take over the thoughts of everyone in the world and create the people they can control. The Program is affecting the people of their society for their own gain of power. Then, supporting the ideas of The Program Huddy identifies how terrorist in our society gain power, “The media plays an especially critical role in framing and amplifying the effects of terrorism and we give special attention to its impact on psychological responses to terrorism...Public opinion then becomes the battleground on which terrorists combat governments. For terrorists to achieve their goals, the targeted public needs to experience fear” (“Public response: Fear and Terrorism”). Terrorist use the media to raise tension in the people which causes emotional unrest throughout the society because they fear what could happen to them. In both the book and the article they pose different view points but ultimately have the same meaning of media drawing the …show more content…
To begin with, Young characterizes the holding room in The Program as, “...quiet--mausoleum quiet--and the air smells slightly of urine...a large room...there are a few scattered wheelchairs with people in gray scrubs. They’re all facing a window, or in one case, facing a black-and-white painting on the wall” (Young 248). These patients are being held in dirty rooms that have no color, they are being emotionally and physically paralyzed from the society. Furthermore, relating to the conditions of The Program Wilkinson elaborates on how the, “...detainees and convicts are being held in "dehumanizing conditions."...including overcrowded and dirty cells...Suspects detained by police pending investigations are thrown in cells with hardened criminals on remand, a development he called unfair” (“Caribbean Prison Conditions Deplorable”). The prisoners in these jails are being held in conditions that are unsuited for human life, and these inappropriate conditions do not help the prisoners right the wrongs they have committed. They ultimately leave the prisoners in a state of mind no one should be in, which brings them farther away from the society. Both groups, the corporation in the book and the government in the article, have received what they wanted from the conditions they have put their patients and prisoners in.
I feel that this book gives a rough, inspiring and passionate warning that the rush to imprison offenders hurts the guards as well as the guarded. Conover reminds us that when we treat prisoners like the garbage of society, we are bound to treat prison staff as garbage men -- best out of sight, their own dirt surpassed only by the dirt they handle. Conover says in one part of his book, “Eventually admitting that being in a position of power and danger brings out a side of myself I don’t like.” I feel both prisoners and officers deserve better.
...they want to be not only respected but also being able to survive in the prison environment. In prison, there are so many inmates and not two inmates are the same. The inmates will disrespect the officers by calling them names, giving officers difficult times, but it goes the other way around too. It is disturbing image after learning that sometimes it is the officer’s fault and not just the inmates’ wrongdoings. There will be times when officers and inmates will engage in a conspiracy crime and times when the female staff is engaged in sexual actions with an inmate. Conover wrote this book to allow the audience to see the prison society from many different point-of-views and give future officers an early insight to becoming a correctional officer.
In writing the book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Conover undergoes a transformation as a correctional officer in order to expose the problems within our prison systems. The reader learns a lot about what is taking place in prisons right now and what it is like to be a guard, but in sum what one must foremost take into account is that this is not how prisons how they have to be. There are social, political, and economic realities that have constructed this system and in order to dispel them it is more beneficial to understand these factors rather than one man’s experience in a place of power at one prison.
After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests. Working in a reception facility, this is a facility where inmates are brought in from the county jails to the state intake facility, we deal with a lot of requests and questions. At times, with the phone ringing off the hook from family members and inmates with their prison request forms, you get a little cynical and tired of answering the same questions over and over. As I read the book I begin to understand some of the reason for the questions. Inmate(s) now realize that the officers and administrative personnel are in control of their lives. They dictate with to get up in the morning, take showers, eat meals, go to classes, the need see people for different reason, when to exercise and when to go to bed. The lost of control over their lives is a new experience for some and they would like to be able to adjust to this new lost of freedom. Upon understanding this and in reading the book, I am not as cynical as I have been and try to be more patient in answering questions. So in a way I have changed some of my thinking and understanding more of prison life.
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
A reality where the prisoner is dehumanized and have their rights and mental health abused. “I have endured lockdowns in buildings with little or no heat; lockdowns during which authorities cut off the plumbing completely, so contraband couldn’t be flushed away; and lockdowns where we weren’t allowed out to shower for more than a month” (Hopkins 154). A prisoner currently must survive isolation with improper shelter in the form of heat. Issues compound with a lack of running water and bathing, a proven severe health danger, especially for someone lacking proper nutrients such as a prisoner in lockdown. These abuses of physical well being then manifest into damage of prisoners’ mental well being. “Perhaps I should acknowledge that the lockdown-and, indeed, all these years-have damaged more than I want to believe” (Hopkins 156). Even for the experienced prisoner the wrath of unethically long lockdowns still cause mental damage. Each and every isolation period becomes another psychological beating delivered as the justice system needlessly aims to damage the already harmed inmates. The damage is so profound inmates even recognize the harm done to them by their jailors. An armed and widely used psychological weapon, the elongated lockdown procedures decimate mental health each and every time
Neither Conover nor Santos paints a favorable picture of conditions within prison. In particular, Santos description of violence within prison shows a very disturbing setting for people to live. Santos describes a daily fight to remain safe and alive. ...
One claim said that citizens pay around “$30,000 per inmate each year” (Jacoby 197). This grasps the reader’s attention by connecting their life to the problem; it is their money, a lot of their money, being used to imprison these criminals. The rates have increased on inmates since the 1980s by over 250% (Jacoby 1997). Jacoby declares that the prison system is terrible; he uses accurate and persuading evidence. According to Jacoby, flogging is faster, cheaper, and a more effective alternative to prison.
There are too many people incarcerated in the United States of America. The U.S. imprisons 724 people per 100,000. In absolute numbers United States has more of its citizens behind bars then do China or Russia combined. (Gallagher 2008). There are about thousand U.S. citizens that become incarcerated in the prison system in any given week. Many of the prisons are so crowded that they have converted the gymnasium into a massive housing unit. These massive housing units hold hundreds of prisoners inside small gymnasiums. The bunk beds are stacked four or five high with every available space reserved for the bunk beds. Even though the prisons are over double capacity they have not added one extra toilet or shower at any of the facilities. Because of this many of the prisoners report tha...
When the average person thinks of a prison, what is often the thought that comes to mind? Perhaps an environment of reform is envisioned, or maybe a place for punishment. Maybe someone sees them as modern leper colonies, where countries send their undesirables. It could be that prisons are all of these things, or they could be none. With these ambiguities in the general definition of a prison it is easy to say that the everyday person could have no real critical perspective on what they truly are. That being said, if the average person were presented with Angela Davis’s perspective, and the perspective of many scholars, they may be shocked to learn what prisons truly are. This perspective presents prisons as a profitable industrial complex very similar to the military industrial complex. Like the military industrial complex, in the “prison industrial complex,” investors make large amounts of money off the backs of imprisoned inmates. It is interesting to note how similar these two systems are, with closer analysis; it seems to me as though one may have developed from the other. On another note, the prison industrial complex also appears to have a correlation with the globalization of labor; which makes it possible to assume that one contributed to the development of the other here as well. However, where the prison industrial complex’s roots lie is not as big an issue as the simple question of the morality of the practice. A person can know the history of the issue all they want but the important matter is addressing it.
Through two metal, cold doors, I was exposed to a whole new world. Inside the Gouverneur Correctional Facility in New York contained the lives of over 900 men who had committed felonies. Just looking down the pathway, the grass was green, and the flowers were beautifully surrounding the sidewalks. There were different brick buildings with their own walkways. You could not tell from the outside that inside each of these different buildings 60 men lived. On each side, sharing four phones, seven showers, and seven toilets. It did not end there, through one more locked metal door contained the lives of 200 more men. This life was not as beautiful and not nearly as big. Although Gouverneur Correctional Facility was a medium security prison, inside this second metal door was a high wired fence, it was a max maximum security prison. For such a clean, beautifully kept place, it contained people who did awful, heart-breaking things.
Overcrowding is one of the predominate reasons that Western prisons are viewed as inhumane. Chapman’s article has factual information showing that some prisons have as many as three times the amount of prisoners as allowed by maximum space standards. Prison cells are packed with four to five prisoners in a limited six-foot-by-six-foot space, which then, leads to unsanitary conditions. Prisons with overcrowding are exposed to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as, tuberculosis and hepatitis.
When somebody abuses a great amount of power, that individual can lose all of their power. The struggle against someone who abuses power is perfectly depicted in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey. When someone abuses their power, they can impose certain feelings and actions on others. If someone tries to conceal their personality. Finally, if someone abuses power and is constantly challenged by another individual who is trying to take the power abuser’s power away from them, the power abuser will always be frightened of his or her challenger.
The line to receive medication can be so long that inmates must choose between taking their medication or eating dinner. Mary, a 58 year old asthmatic inmate, testifies this claim. Additionally, even after the death of an inmate, the prison staff lacks efficiency in signing the death certificate and releasing the body to the inmate’s family. While incarcerated, poverty prevails due to debts accrued through embracing the prison’s formal healthcare system. Before any treatment is given, inmates must pay a five dollar co-pay.
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.