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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues

What Going to Jail Taught me about the US Prison System and Incarceration

At 19, I was a damn fool. Reckless abandon and rebellious disregard for authority were tenets of my adolescent attitude. So it came as no surprise to anyone when I was incarcerated at the Weber County Correctional Facility.

Through interaction with other inmates, I met many career criminals, some of whom were absolutely psychotic, but most of whom were pleasant, normal human beings. Oddly, the latter group were the ones who frightened me, because so many of them were very much like myself. Many of them had first seen the inside of a cell as a result of minor drug or alcohol charges. Unlike me, most of them lacked social and familial support, leading them down paths of recidivism. It is with those men in mind that I advocate for a shift in our perceptions of the prison system and those who suffer within it.

The purpose of prison is multifold. Prisons are the mechanism by which we separate undesirables from the “good” people. But that’s just one side of the story. From the inside, looking out, prisons are the physical embodiment of socially-sanctioned torture. Rather than reformation or rehabilitation, these institutions inspire alienation, anger, hopelessness and myriad mental illnesses. If we are to fix our correctional system, we must begin by empathizing with the prisoners and respecting their basic, human needs.

My short stint in jail allowed me to recognize a detrimental flaw in the jailhouse environment: It is artificial. The feelings evoked by that environment are desperately primal. The interminable flickering of lights immediately disrupted my circadian rhythm, preventing me from sleeping for more than a few hours a night. One guy in my block would stay awake all night, running from one end of his cell to the other, kicking the wall each time he reached it. After talking with him and other inmates who’d known him for a long time, I learned that he was first arrested on a non-violent alcohol charge but had developed insomnia during his stay in jail. He tried to self-medicate with drugs, which led him to a life of crime and a practically permanent stay in prison. His story is sadly typical. Insomnia is prevalent among the ever-swelling population of American prisoners, destabilizing otherwise sane minds and ensuring that victims will struggle to successfully reintegrate into society. Yet this disease can be mitigated by simply turning off hallway lights at night time, and allowing for more natural light to filter into the prison during the day. Sleep is requisite for healthy mental functioning, and without it, our decisions are driven not by reason, but by instinct, paranoia and delusion.

Diet is also negligible. On my first night I was treated to a dish of frozen hot dog slices, bogged down in a sludge of reheated beans, with a piece of bread on the side. The meal plan didn’t improve much from there. Diets high in fats and sugars prevent our brains and bodies from functioning optimally, as it deprives them of their preferred energy sources. The effects of poor dietary habits on our inmate population include an increase in impulsive behavior, heightened anxiety, greater mental and emotional instability, as well as general disease and unhealthiness — the kinds of feelings and traits that might lead one to perpetrate crime in the first place.

Lack of adequate exercise and physical engagement is also an aspect of our prison system. Weber County has a small pen wherein individuals can exercise. But violent games of handball dominate the space, deterring anyone from lingering. It seems counterproductive to discourage non-violent physical activity. Humans are designed to move through the world and be stimulated by it. A person cannot find stimulation in trodding down the same slice of grass day in and day out. We should allow inmates to spend more time engaging with the world.

Sure, you might shake your head at the notion of improving life for prisoners. The phrase “prison isn’t supposed to be fun” is used ad nasuem in modern society, but it is the argument of callous simpletons, and I reject it. I don’t think we should allow inmates decent sleep, necessary nourishment, adequate exercise and a degree of environmental stimulation in order to make prison fun. We need to include these elements in our penal system because they are essential for helping the mental illnesses and individual character flaws that incubate antisocial behavior. Our current system perpetuates patterns of criminal behavior instead of treating them.

Even if you are lucky enough to avoid imprisonment, you cannot escape its all-pervasive influence. Society at large would benefit from a change in our perception of prisons. By simply treating prisoners as people, we can reduce national recidivism rates, decrease crime, lighten the economic burden born of criminal detention and alleviate the suffering of millions of Americans.

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