The Meaning Of Life Without Parole

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Recommended: Essay on structural violence

As Johan Galtung describes in his article, Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, structural violence is where social structure can inflict harm on individuals by preventing them from meeting basic needs. In regards to the February 2016 New Yorker Article, The Meaning of Life Without Parole, the social structure created by the prison system has caused a separation between people. Instead of being viewed as a human-being, offenders are labeled as criminals and become marginalized from the rest of society. Along with the stigma of conviction that has been created, offenders, especially those that are juvenile, are also subjected to structural violence through the sentences they are given. Even within a collection of criminals, they are categorized, usually by the type of crimes they commit: non-violent, violent, and property offenses. While most of the general public, advocate for releasing non-violent offenders to lessen the …show more content…

Instead, these individuals are subjected to the structural violence of the system, and are largely given “life without possibility of parole” sentences. No matter how remorseful they are, how much they have learned, or how young and naive they were when the crime was committed, these individuals will never get the chance to live a different type of life. Instead, they will carry out the rest of their lives in between the cement walls of state prison. But is this systemic process helping society and the overall purpose of incarceration, or is structural violence causing more harm than good? As stated in the text, “Further, if the purpose of incarceration is public safety, what does it mean to keep people in prison when they are no longer a threat to society,” (Smith

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