Self-preservation, natures first great law,All the creatures, but man, doth awe.-Andrew MarvelleLove, family, and small thrills are but three things to live for. Sometimes they are the only things to live for. Sometimes they are what drive us to survive. For some of the inmates at Angola State Prison, there is little to live for and they still survive. Daniel Bergner once stated, "We live for whatever it is possible to live for…" (168). But what do the inmates of Angola live for? What brings meaning into their lives? Many of the inmates at Angola have been convicted of capital crimes. Many have no chance for parole. They still survive; they still find a reason to live. They find meaning in their lives.Before purpose and survival or redemption and salvation can be discussed, an idea of what Angola is must be produced. The warden of Angola is a large man by the name of Burl Cain. Some believe that he is the reason for Angola being what it is. Bergner believes different:The striking tranquility at Angola—confirmed by the ACLU’s National Prison Project and Louisiana’s own watchdogs—could not be credited to Warden Cain alone. Twenty-one years ago conditions had been so anarchic and murderous a federal judge had ruled that the prison "shocked the conscience" and breached the Eight Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Reform had begun then. […] [Warden Cain] aimed not merely at warehousing inmates safely, but at rebuilding them, at redeeming them, whether in terms of his Southern Baptist belief or in religious terms more broad ("Love thy neighbor…") or simply in the sense of learning to live in some valuable way, without the impulses that lead to destroying others…. (24-25)Though Bergner only carries this thought through the beginning of his stay at Angola, it is till a viable description of the institution. With this rough idea of Angola in mind, the inmates of Angola can be discussed. Their reasons for living can be shared.Carey "Buckkey" Lasseigne was convicted to live imprisonment at Angola at the age of 22 (Bergner 220). "He was separated from his wife the month after the killing, and they have since divorced. But they had been back together since his first year at Angola" (Bergner 221). That is part of what kept Buckkey going; part of what gave him a reason to live inside Angola. His wife is only part of the reason.
The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison: Dir. Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus. Perf. Warden Cain,
1. The insight that each of these sources offers into slave life in the antebellum South is how slaves lived, worked, and were treated by their masters. The narratives talk about their nature of work, culture, and family in their passages. For example, in Solomon Northup 's passage he describes how he worked in the cotton field. Northup said that "An ordinary day 's work is considered two hundred pounds. A slave who is accustomed to picking, is punished, if he or she brings less quantity than that," (214). Northup explains how much cotton slaves had to bring from the cotton field and if a slave brought less or more weight than their previous weight ins then the slave is whipped because they were either slacking or have no been working to their
Understanding the organization of prisons and how the are can is a very complex mechanism. In “Stateville: The penitentiary in Mass Society”, Jacobs seeks to understand the organization in the Stateville prison system, one of the world’s toughest prisons. Giving the history of the prison does this and how things ran under different wardens, and how things were coupled throughout different organizations. When looking at these things Jacobs also points out issues in the prison and how they happened under what type of organization. By doing this, Stateville is easily relatable to understand leadership and authority.
Chapman’s research shows evidence of 211 stabbings taking place in three years at one prison in Louisiana. Bloody riots, rape, robberies, and exhortation are just a few of the everyday occurrences that can be expected when entering a penitentiary.
Brubaker snuck into the prison, even after he was named the warden. Nobody in their right mind snuck into a prison, let alone this one in Arkansas. He wanted to see what life was actually like, instead of just hearing what others said (Brubaker). The prisoners believed that one warden or government official was just as bad as the next. They have no reason to believe any different. The prison was basically run by slave labor, using corporal punishment in everyday situations. These situations didn’t even need a reason; sometimes it was done just because.
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
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
During the American Revolution and the civil war, the North and the South experienced development of different socio-political and cultural environmental conditions. The North became an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse as a result of rise of movements like abolitionism and women’s right while the South became a cotton kingdom whose labor was sourced from slavery (Spark notes, 2011).
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Belle Meade Plantation began as a successful thoroughbred horse farms in the country in 1807. The plantation is located in Nashville ,Tennessee and even after the Civil War continued to prosper in the thoroughbred horse breeding business. Today, the plantation, due to its historical significance, is a non-profit museum that focuses on the experience of being in the nineteenth century. Faced with financial concerns, the Kelleys, Alton and Sheree had to come up with a business plan in order to secure funding in the long term to keep the museum running. Donations were increasingly lower each year and the couple had to find answers to their financial dilemma. Their unique approach was to incorporate social entrepreneurship in the shape of a nonprofit winery. Although the non profit winery is doing well, the plantation will have its challenges. If Belle Meade Plantation can continue it success, it can be an example to other nonprofit entities in how to use social entrepreneurship for raising funds in a ever-changing economic climate.
Prisons exist in this country as a means to administer retributive justice for those that break the laws in our society or to state it simply prisons punish criminals that are to receive a sentence of incarceration for more than one year. There are two main sub-cultures within the walls of prison the sub-culture of the Department of Corrections (which consists of the corrections officer, administrators, and all of the staff that work at the prison and go home at the end of their day) and the actual prisoners themselves. As you can imagine these two sub-cultures are dualistic in nature and this makes for a very stressful environment for both sides of the fence. While in prison, the inmates experience the same conditions as described in the previous
Jonathan Wayne Nobles grins at me through inch-thick wire-reinforced glass, hunching over to speak in a deep, resonant voice through the steel grate below. A feeble "What’s up?" is the best I can manage. The visiting area in Ellis One Unit is crowded with other folks who have traveled, in some cases thousands of miles, to visit relatives and correspondents on Texas’ Death Row. They sit at intervals in wooden chairs surrounding a cinder block and steel cage that dominates the center of the room. There are cages within the cage as well, reserved for inmates under disciplinary action and "death watch" status. Falling into the latter category, Jon must squeeze his considerable bulk into one of these phone-booth-sized enclosures.
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life”.- Walter Mitty (Movie).
Knowing and understanding the author’s purpose, we see where he is coming from and what his “point of view” is. We see that the author is someone that does not agree with the activities that occur in the native prison. It makes the author feel uncomfortable with the establishment and its procedures.
... walls. Auburn penitentiary’s inmates were basically totally isolated from the world. The Auburn penitentiary was built to make up for the problems and overcrowding at the Newgate penitentiary located in New York City. Quaker Thomas Eddy was Newgate penitentiary’s first keeper. Quaker Thomas Eddy believed that rehabilitation of the criminals was ultimate goal at the end of prison sentence. I can apply the information I learned to my chosen field as a parole officer, by being able to tell the inmates about how far our prison system has come, and letting them know if they thought it was bad now, it was a lot worst. It can be used as a reminder of a place they don’t want to return to.