Discussion

Throughout the semester I've learned a lot about the prison system and I believe a lot of you have as well. With all the readings throughout the semester, what stood out to me was how prisons and the system alone handled the prisoners and the damage they've done. Not only were prison systems a factor throughout the readings, but the policing system was involved. College and school officers/ security guards are meant to protect the students but as it's seen through the articles, that's not the case. In Mariame Kaba's article, she makes an argument for dismantling the police and what it stands for. She argues that the police do not actually address criminality because it is a punitive approach rather than a supportive or effective method of addressing social and criminal challenges. I agree with this statement because it can be seen that the guards/police at schools protect the school itself from the students instead of protecting students from unnecessary situations. With the prison system, Angela Davis mentions how we always believed in prisons as a way of helping us and protecting us from the bad, it's difficult to imagine life without them. After reading these books/articles, Racism and Slavery still being the center stage behind those walls are completely astonishing. Men and women of different colors are being targeted and being forced to do labor. Even women are being attacked, beaten, killed, and even sexually assaulted, and at times they were even drugged as well. This hit me hard because that cannot be tolerated and it's just hurtful for what we have gone through, throughout the past. What also caught my eye was how in the state of California, an excessive amount of prisons were built which presented even more convicts to be imprisoned. With how Ruth Wilson Gilmore portrayed her book with numbers, tables, and data, we could see the different prisons that were built, the way crime increased and decreased in certain areas. I've learned a lot throughout this semester that has changed my mind about many things but the big center of attention belongs to how we as a community and a society can change what's going on with the prison systems and the police system. We must support the men and women that are going through these difficulties and find ways to reform the system overall because it is time for a better and brighter future!