Essay revised

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Are Prisons Obsolete?

Professor Davis brings up her concern about the need to dissolve the current prison system in our nation in her book "Are Prisons Obsolete." She firmly believes that prisons are not purposeful as they were when they were first created. (Davis, 2003)The primary purpose of creating prisons was to effectively deal with crime rates and make society a place worth living. However, there is a significant increase in crime rates since most people are unemployment and lack quality education; therefore, idleness and frustration push them into criminal activities. As the wise saying goes, "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." People who lack basic needs are easily swayed into theft and robbery to find means of satisfying their needs and those of their families too. According to Professor Davis, this is an indication that society is under siege. Therefore she calls for the need to transform it rather than improve the prison system, which has proven futile. The prison situation is horrifying prisoners' rights are violated, e.g., they are not allowed to exercise their voting rights, are forced to provide unpaid labour, and women are sexually assaulted. This essay focuses on how Professor Davis uses various techniques to support and build her argument and the effectiveness of each technique used.

Professor Davis maintains her stand of supporting the anti-prison movement all through her book. She doesn't go for anything else other than abolishing prisons since she is firmly convinced prisons are no longer helpful to us. She acknowledges that people are so much familiar with prisons that they can never imagine life without prisons. Therefore she traces historical information about slavery to try and erase this notion. In the past decades, people were so much into slavery and could not imagine life without slavery. Still, after several antislavery movements with much convincing, they realized slavery was evil and eradicated it. Since then, life has been worth living without slavery; therefore, some things we hold so dear to us can prove toxic when we came to the full realization of them, just like prisons.

She uses numerous quotes to support her argument towards the anti-prison movement in our nation. She captures by Elliott Currie in her book, "the prison has become a looming presence in our society to an extent unparalleled in our history or that of any other industrial democracy. Short of major wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time" she uses this quest to express her anguish about the increasing number of people being detained in the prisons. Many people are incarnated into prisons without logical debates about why they are being imprisoned; this is attributed to social issues such as discrimination against status, colour, race, and gender. A more significant percentage of the prison occupants are blacks, Latinos, women, and people from the native communities in our nation. It is also astonishing as to the increase of people with mental issues occupying prisons and jails rather than being admi6ted into psychiatric hospitals. This indicates a financial gain for the prison system if many prisons offer free labour to rich people. The prison administration receives the payment on behalf of the prisoners.

Professor Davis uses another quote by Arthur Waskow from Institute for Policy Studies to reinforce her argument "Forget about reform; it's time to talk about abolishing jails and prisons in American society. Still-abolition? Where do you put the prisoners? The 'criminals'? What's the alternative? First, having no alternative at all would create less crime than the present criminal training centers do. Second, the only full alternative is building the kind of society that does not need prisons: A decent redistribution of power and income so as to put out the hidden fire of burning envy that now flames up in crimes of property-both burglary by the poor and embezzlement by the affluent. And a decent sense of community that can support, reintegrate and truly rehabilitate those who suddenly become filled with fury or despair, and that can face them not as objects-'criminals'-but as people who have committed illegal acts, as have almost all of us." She uses this quote to nullify the possibilities of using prison reforms to improve the situation in the prison system. Reforms have been used over the past years, but there is still no slight improvement in the prisons; instead, things are moving from worse to worse.

She captures another quote by an inmate named Louis Watkins recorded in the Associated Press news story to support her argument on the need to do away with prisons. He said, "Guards at the Brazoria County Detention Center used cattle prods and other forms of intimidation to win respect and force prisoners to say, "I love Texas." "What you saw on tape wasn't a fraction of what happened that day, referring to the videotaped cell-block raid of September 18, 1996." I've never seen anything like that in the movies". She uses this quote to explain how prisoners are tortured in the prisoners to do something against their wishes. Prison officers use violence to get what they want from prisoners, even if it is against their civil rights. From this, she uses that inmate's personal experience to reveal the realness of mistreatment in prisons.

Angela uses a quote by Linda Evans and Eve Goldberg to reveal the horrible situations in the prisons. "For private business, prison labour is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers' compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, and make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria's Secret, all at a fraction of the cost of 'free labour.'" Prisoners are forced to provide free services without getting any pay. The pay is given to the prison officers, who use the finances for their gain, forgetting it is the prisoners' hard-earned money.

She also records her experience when she first joined anti-prison activities; approximately 200,000 people were detained in prisons, which is not the case now since the number of prisoners is more than two million. According to statistics, this is almost 20% of the total prisoners globally since there are currently about nine million prisoners worldwide. This statistics ranks our nation as the largest in terms of prisoners' population in the world as a whole. California is the leading state with an averagely of 33 prisons and 38 camps and has the highest number of women prisoners: more than 35,000 women in Valley State Prison for women. Statistics is compelling because it gives information in numerals which is easier to understand than theoretical information.

She uses information from Rachel Kushner's book "Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind" to build her argument. Gilmore is also an anti-prison activist who supports the need to eradicating prisons. She believes we can live peacefully without necessarily having prison by solving the issues that promote people from engaging in crime. (Kushner, 2019). Angela uses this information since she believes in the transformation of society to harness peace in our community.

In conclusion, it is true to say that our prison system is obsolete, and therefore we need to develop other strategies to replace the prison systems. The state government should provide quality education, voluntary health care, increased job opportunities, and equitable resources to people in society. With improved living conditions, there is a surety of decreased crime rates in the community.

References

Davis, Angela Y. (2003) Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Open Media.

Kushner, R. (2019). Is prison necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore might change your mind. The New York Times.