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Jail Tour

Institution

Jail Tour

The United States Correctional System has been cited by the civil societies and other partners in the global divide to encompass a number of issues that lead to a violation of the humnan rights and privileges of the inmates. According to Bosworth (2017), the United States has the greatest of all when it comes to the prison population. The country interestingly has around half a million prisoners than China despite the fact that China has around four times the overall population of the United States. Visiting the River North Correctional Center and New River Valley Regional Jail furnished me with a ton of experiences regarding then real situation of the American prisons. New River Valley Regional Jail revealed much more of this information because River North Correctional Center had been locked for a number of reasons.

There have been claims by the government that the current criminal justice reforms were aimed at causing an absolute overhaul in the correctional system in the country in order to make it more efficient, more objective and address the concerns that had been raised by the human rights entities. Against my expectation is the kind of population that I witnessed at New River Valley Regional Jail. One of the basic questions that I asked from this is about the crime index of the country. It follows that after inquiring from the prison warders and managemen, the conditions in the prison today were inherited from the devastating consequences of the Great Depression witnessed in 2009 (Bosworth, 2017). This was cited as one of the primary bases when it comes status of overcrowding in the prison.

A vast majority of the population is middle aged. This means that the crimes committed by a vast majority of the prisoners are most probably crimes of survival. It follows that harsh economic times pushes people to acquire property in the effort to acquire livelihood for survival. The management further confirmed that the New River Valley Regional Jail committed the said crimes in the effort to meet a basic standard of living. For instance, those that had stolen food-related items were many. Those who had provided fraudulent information were in the effort to acquire a job were also many.

Furthermore, for the cells originally built for a few people, they were overcrowded beyond measure. This means that the New River Valley Regional Jail is operating beyond capacity. Almost all beds in the prison were shared among two or three people. This subjected the inmates to harsh living conditions that deeply undermined their health real time. Overcrowding hence remains a serious problem that has created hazards to the inmate population and encouraged irresponsible behaviors among the administrators real time (Stoll, 2017).

The other observation made at the New River Valley Regional Jail was the sour relationship between the prison management and prisoners. The fact that New River Valley Regional Jail is referred to as a correctional facility means that inmates have a chance to change their initial behaviors toward becoming law abiding and responsible members of the society. It hence follows that I expected things such as training, provision of basic education to the inmates, and provision of other social services aimed at improving and reshaping the lives of the inmates. However, the relationship between the administrators and the inmates is a clear indication of the humanitarian issues that are facing the United States’ prisons and specifically New River Valley Regional Jail today.

The other concern I noted at New River Valley Regional Jail is the increased population of the mentally ill inmates. This included a wide range of health conditions such as the disorders that have a negative effect on the mood, behavior and reasoning capacity of an individual. Some of the common conditions that were evident in the prison include depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia among others. This reflected the findings by Edge (2018) that the people suffering from mental health issues have four times chance of ending up in prison. Among other observations that I made in the prison include poorly maintained rooms without proper ventilations besides being poorly furnished. The greatest population of the inmates was also non-whites.

There are key lessons that I learnt from this visit. To start with is that a vast majority of the incarcerations could be avoided through proper mental health treatment. This is because of the big population of the mentally ill individuals who were present at New River Valley Regional Jail. Secondly, there is a need for the government to firm its efforts in prison reforms. Corrective programs not only aimed at punishing the individuals for the specific crimes committed but also improving their living conditions are necessary in order to make sure that the American government get value from the billions of dollars that are channeled toward building and maintenance of prisons. Mass overcrowding in the American prisons is a bad image to the country and as well does not give the value that the country should be getting from the billions given by the government to take care of the prisons.

References

Bosworth, M. (2017). The U.S. federal prison system. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Edge, L. B. (2018). Locked up: A history of the U.S. prison system. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books.

Stoll, M. A. (2017). Do prisons make us safer? The benefits and costs of the Prison Boom. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.