On Thursday last week, we got the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Lesley Becher, Leigh Lynch’s right hand woman for running the Arts in Prisons program. In reference specifically to this program, something new I learned about the development of collaborations with community is just how accepting a community can be. One of the programs run by Arts in Prisons is a choir concert put on by the men of the minimum-security level facility. Not only are the men allowed to exit the prison for their concert, but also, they collaborate with a men’s choir from outside the prison. Additionally, there is quite a crowd that attends the event. I can only imagine how this experience makes the men of this facility feel. For a few hours, I can picture them feeling normal again. Like they are part of a community outside of the prison, and they aren’t being judged for their crimes. Furthermore, there is another program in one of the medium security prisons. As a result of this, the men are …show more content…
One specific program they offer is public speaking. Lesley spoke about how important she thinks this program is for the men. She thinks this specifically because these men rarely get to talk to people other than one another. So, as a result, when the do get to talk to someone new they either don’t know how to talk to someone new, or they word vomit about their life story. Therefore, why should we expect them to be able to speak publically? I think that this thought process can, and should be applied to the classroom. In some ways, kids are very similar to the men in the facility. They can be very unaware of how to effectively communicate orally. As an artist, and a contributing member of society, this is an essential tool. In my future classroom, public speaking is a skill I want to promote the growth of in my
The picture this book paints would no doubt bother corrections professionals in prisons where prisoner-staff relationships and officer solidarity are more developed. In training, Conover is told that "the most important thing you can learn here is to communicate with inmates." And the Sing Sing staff who enjoy the most success and fulfillment i...
Newjack is Ted Conover’s personal memoir as a correctional officer in one of New York’s famous maximum security prisons: Sing Sing. The job of a correctional officer consists of long days locking and unlocking cells, moving prisoners to and from various locations while the prisoners beg, aggravate and abuse them. After a short time at the academy and a brief period of on-the-job training, Conover found himself working, often alone and always unarmed, in galleries housing sixty or more inmates. He heard of many stories that happen in prison. Stories include inmates beating inmates and burning their cell house, an inmate who was beaten by correctional officers after striking an officer in the head with a broom handle. Surprisingly, there are even some instances where there are voluntary sexual encounters between female staff and inmates. It is really a welcoming job for the “newjacks” and for the readers. On top of that, supervisors do not mentor or guide new officers and officers on one shift push problems off onto the next. Conover sees and realizes that correctional workers are very flexible characters, neither good nor bad, but must cope with stress and problems in a well-organized manner. As Conover points out, that at Sing Sing is against the possibility of staff getting to know prisoners. It is ridiculous to see that there are problems that prison administrators clearly could have solved but do not, instead, they care more about the inmates and officer’s relationship. In particular, enticements for better supervision and more support for effective staff are clearly needed.
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.
Relations during this time with the prison and the outside world are discussed, as well as how these relations dominated life inside of a prison and developed new challenges within the prison. After Ragen left, Frank Pate become his successors. Pate faced a problem because he neither sought nor exercised the charismatic authority of Ragen. The Prison remained an imperatively coordinated paramilitary organization, which still required its warden to personify its goals and values. Jacobs goes on to discusses how what Pate did, was not the same direction or ideas that Ragen was doing or had. Jacobs’s counties this discussion with the challenges and issues that prison had during the time of 1961 through 1970. Jacobs blames that the loss of a warden who could command absolute authority, the loss of local autonomy, it heightened race problems among blacks, and the penetration of legal norms exposed severe strains in the authrotitarian system, and says pate cant control
Although prisons have the primary objective of rehabilitation, prisoners will likely go through many other troubling emotions before reaching a point of reformation. Being ostracized from society, it is not uncommon to experience despair, depression, and hopelessness. Be that as it may, through reading various prison writings, it can be seen that inmates can find hope in the smallest things. As represented in “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane”, the author, Etheridge Knight, as well as other black inmates look up to Hard Rock, an inmate who is all but dutiful in a world where white people are placed at the top of the totem pole. However, after Hard Rock goes through a lobotomy-esque procedure, the motif
According to the prior summarized research, the origin of the supermax facility is established. It is identified that these facilities were necessary to create order among inmates in the general prison population. Differing characteristics of inmates can potentially create havoc and chaos in prison environments. Although there are inmates who request placement in supermax facilities, inmates who do not choose to be housed in these facilities demonstrate certain constant factors seen among the population in supermax facilities. It is understandable that gang affiliation, mental illness, and specialized needs for protective custody lead to placement in supermax facilities due to the protection of correctional officers and staff, along with the
Documentaries serve to draw a response through the use of literary techniques in order to present a particular point of view. Michael Cordell’s Music and Murder subscribes to this principle, the documentary focuses on three men serving prison sentences for taking a life and how music has changed and shaped their outlook on their own lives. Music, structure, verbal language and selection of detail all work on the viewers emotions which serve to draw a positive response towards rehabilitation in prisons.
Attorney General's Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas
The correctional system is based on helping offenders become part of society and not commit any crimes. Many prisons begin the correcting criminals since they are inside the jails, but many prisons do not. Prisons provide prisoners with jobs inside the prison where they get very little pay close to nothing and many have programs that will help them advance their education or get their high school diploma. There are various programs prisons provide to prisoners to help them get a job or have a skill when they are released from prison. In contrast, prisons that do not provide programs or help to prisoners rehabilitate and enter society again will be more likely to commit another crime and go back to jail. The Shawshank Redemption prison did not
The career of a correctional officer has always captivated me in a way that is difficult to explain. Even as a child, I recall tuning into shows such as Lockup and Lockdown. In fact, my earliest, most vivid memories consist of me sitting in front of a TV screen with my eyes mesmerized by the hardened criminals visioned on the screen before me. It may seem peculiar, but I’ve always pictured myself inside the prison walls. What’s even more peculiar is that I’ve seldom visioned myself as a correctional officer; in fact, I’ve almost always visioned myself as a prisoner.
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.
America, the land of the free, as well as the not so free. As well as being the largest in the world, the prison population within the United States provides proof that it is the most broken forms of incarceration. The U.S. subscribes to the notion that all people that have committed a crime can be rehabilitated and released as a fully functioning member of society. However, this entire concept is wrong.
Based on a true story, the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment, directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, tells a story of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychology professor who inspects the source of abuse in the prison system and the affects a prison system can have on human behavior. Although the findings of the experiment shocked the world, there were many ethical issues surrounding the study which will be examined in greater detail for the duration of this paper.
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.
What would happen if we took the millions of people who are incarcerated in the United States and interjected art into their lives with the hopes, of rehabilitating them? What the success rate would be. What be any sort of distinction with someone who participates in cultural programs versus someone who doesn’t. With collaborative efforts, there can be programs that are put in place that will better these people who have, are and will struggle the rest of their lives.