Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Pre-Reading Week 13

It has been a big eye opener for me so far from what we have learned in class about the Prison-Industrial Complex. I never thought much about what prisons do besides the fact that they are supposed to punish and correct those who committed a crime. I never realized how much it is a vicious cycle though and how it is used as a money maker. In my opinion race has a big connection to crime. We often see certain races such as blacks as being the ones to blame for crime in humanity, but we never often think of why it is mainly them who commit the crimes. Minorities often get the short end of the stick when it comes to crime because we tend to overlook the crime going on in white committees. It is not only minorities who are the majority of who commits crime it is just the result of a vicious cycle that was created way back in the days after slavery was abolished. After slavery was no longer allowed, whites had lost their control and domination over people of color so they would create new ways to undermine the system and still hold their social hierarchy status. They would stereotype people of color, particularly blacks, negatively so that people who still view them as inferior to whites. Since they are viewed negatively by so many people it makes it harder for them to succeed and they end up resorting to crime as a solution in order to make it in the world. Prisons in the United States serve as a place to hold people who have committed crimes in order to punish them and correct their crime  I find prisons useful in some ways and in some ways I don’t. While it does keep criminals off the streets and endangering society, it doesn't really offer a solution to change the person for the better. To me, prisons most of the time just build the anger in the person who was put in prison in the first place. Often when one is released from prison they are scrutinized against for the rest of their lives which doesn't give them a chance to change and make a difference for themselves for the better. In order to stay off the streets and keep from committing a crime a person needs to see a positive change in them selves first before they can leave their criminal past behind, but we often don’t even  give them the chance to. If we see them as criminals and only criminals for the rest of their lives then how are they supposed to see themselves as anything else other than that?

Word Count: 449

3 comments:

  1. Hi Justina,
    I am glad to hear that you were willing to reflect on your original thoughts- that shows intellectual strength!
    In response to your thoughts about the functions of prisons: prisons are marketed as keeping criminals off the street- what kinds of criminals do prisons incarcerate? Are their racial and class lines drawn around the kinds of behaviors we consider most 'criminal'?

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  2. I thought your idea of the prison industrial complex being a vicious cycle was spot on and I completely agree. People who end up living in the poor neighborhoods have a lot things fighting against them, making it all the more difficult to make it out of this segregated bubble they've been pushed into. I agree that once you find out that someone was in prison it's hard to look past that, it's always in the back of your mind, "oh, they were in prison...", but now that know more about the prison industrial complex do you think that changes things, even just a little?

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  3. Hey Justina,
    Nice blog entry! I think you did a good job of illustrating the cycle of crime and how the Prison industrial Complex traces back to slavery and whites loosing their power over African Americans. I also agree that the prisons do not help prisoners become better people for life after they're released and I think that is something that definitely needs to be modified or the cycle is bound to continue.

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