Seeing Stars Through Bars

When you look at a human you see the effects of every experience that has crossed their paths. Their personality, their fears, passions, and pet-peeves have been shaped based upon their past. Some, more than others, have experiences which cause negative actions to occur. Those who have parents who have been charged and convicted for a crime, are more likely to end up with at least one charge or conviction themselves. We must analyze the impact that is had upon a human up until the point in which they’re being charged, and determine how to more appropriately respond to the issue. In, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Impact, by: Heather Ann Thompson, there is a man who portrays the reality that is isolation as punishment after committing crime, “Carlos Roche watched as tears of elation ran down the withered face of his friend ‘Owl’, an old man who had been locked up for decades… “I haven’t seen the stars in twenty-two years”. There are many issues with this statement including proof that a punishment is being implemented due to the crime that Owl had committed; however, whether it is the most beneficial form of punishment is the question to ask. To even be considering it punishment is to stray from the point of one’s advocacy through the field of criminal justice. When you look at an individual who has committed a crime you see a variety of issues stemming with the person: being, poverty, lack of education, drug addiction, family issues, race, etc. These variables which continuously find themselves to be apparent in a criminal, speak for the likelihood that one is to commit a crime. If we look at these variables we see that they’re systemic to the environment and people submersed around this individual. More likely than not, serving time in prison or jail will not help alleviate these variables but instead either heighten them or hide them under the rug just to be found later. If we want true reform within our society, we must look towards the actions we take after someone has committed a crime. A large number of these individuals who commit crimes have neurological or mental illnesses which account for certain behaviors. These behaviors and tendencies will not stopped until assessed and addressed by a licensed individual. The likelihood that a criminal in rehabilitation versus prison will commit another crime is contingent upon which route is taken. If the individual goes through rehab, they have the chance to reform their lives and to decipher the underlying reasons of the negative behaviors resulting in the opportunity to change the behaviors. If we isolate a human being who is shaped upon experience, we merely leave them with that which has occurred thus far in their lives. Their behavior is shaped by this only, often resulting in the inability to reflect, grow and learn from their actions. Their memories more likely than not are of last sights, actions or gestures. The criminals are people too and they begin to see prison and jail as an end to their life story.

Though the level of crimes committed vary from person to person, this is all the same: those who commit crimes are in some way shape or form unable to balance their tendencies to social norms. Through the lens of philosophy, one knows that through Freudian principles, an individual needs to achieve primitive libido fulfillment in order to move forward. Some individuals have more extreme tendencies to satisfy their libido; encouraging more dramatic and sometimes criminal actions. These individuals are able to rationalize what they had to to the point where they have accepted the action they implemented. These humans do not need punishment in the form of isolation and jailing but rather, rehabilitations resulting in the change in formation to which the mind decides that some actions are morally unjustified.

Pastor Larry was once speaking to a group of inmates serving long prison sentences for genocidal acts committed in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 to 1 million people died. He had said to them, “as a person of faith I believe that whenever two or more gather together God is in the midst of them. Since we are all children of God. God is with us and therefore this ground we are on (i.e. the prison yard) is sacred space”. Reflecting upon this, one may then consider the fact that though an individual is sitting in a place of punishment, darkness, and criminal community; they have the ability to see through it and realize that it is still the same Earth. Thus, the individual begins to see the prison yard as their symbolic place of reflection. Though, as I had mentioned above punishment is less effective than rehabilitation. However, this does not mean that it is ineffective for every human being. For some, they look amongst the population of people who fill the jail cells seeing them as those that the individual does not want to be defined with. Some have harsher sentences than other depending upon the nature of their crime, and this helps individuals in lower security to see the implications to further bad decisions and behaviors. This does not speak, however, for the high recidivism rate that is seen in America. If we decide to continue our efforts of incarceration, we must also provide resources and opportunities after the individual’s release in order to deter them from committing another crime.