Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption

There is a staggering amount of corruption in the prison system that is caused by pressure on the inmates as well as the employees in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. The aforementioned corruption contributes greatly to many of the main plot points in the story such as; the harassment of the prisoners, the smuggling of contraband items into Shawshank, and the prisoners making their own lives easier by using the corruption for their own purposes.

Corruption is a main cause of the harassment and exploitation of the prisoners. This is exemplified by the Inside-out Program, initiated by Samuel Norton. It is described as being slave-labour, which has never been described as fair. Without the corruption in the program, Norton would not have earned as much money as he did (under the table) and the prisoners might not have been as exploited for their labour. Red mentions that “The construction businesses in the area were deathly afraid of Norton’s Inside-out program, because prison labour is slave labour, and you can’t compete with that.” (King, 57) This proves that the prisoners agree that the labour is very unfair compared to the work put in by regular construction workers, and is unfair to the construction workers too. Furthermore, Norton refused to allow Andy to have a new trial after hearing the evidence which would have made a very convincing case, which was a corrupt and unjust thing to do, based solely on the fact that Norton did not want to lose Andy as an asset, also that he was afraid of what Andy could say in court about his corrupt dealings. When Red gives his opinion, he says; “and I’m convinced that what happened happened because Norton didn’t want to lose his good right hand. I’ll go further...

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... the prisoners direct involvement in the corruption, but a friend, lover, family member, et cetera, betters their life, and that wouldn’t happen had it not been for the corruption. The prisoners know the corruption in Shawshank well, and know how to use it to their advantage.

Corruption in the Shawshank prison causes harassment of prisoners, smuggling supplies into prison and exploitation of said corruption by the prisoners themselves. This is still an issue in the prison system today, and it makes one wonder how that would be affected if our system was based more on healthy rehabilitation, and trying to introduce prisoners back to society as functioning members, instead of the punishment that doesn’t seem to be effective.

Works Cited

King, Stephen. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons. Thorndike, Me.: Thorndike, 1982. Print.