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Hunter Terry
Prisons May Do More Harm than Good on Inmates
Prisons serve as a necessary function in modern America. It is undeniable that issues
need to be dealt with when laws are broken, but the current system of imprisonment may be
doing more harm than good for the people affected. While there are alternate measures available
for criminals, prisons as “instruments of punishment” are by far the most popular (Cullen, Jonson
and Stohr 2014:259). Researchers have begun to investigate if this method is the best option for
dealing with crime and what consequences it has on the inmates. The lack of mobility,
autonomy, and community has negative effects on the prisoners. There have also been studies
into how prisons are not equipped to deal with the health and psychological issues that inmates
have as they come into the system. Women arguably face even tougher conditions as their fears
of victimization are reinforced in the prison and they are torn from their families. Many of these
problems increase the rate of recidivism. While there are many things wrong with the system,
programs and policies have come to reform the prison as a functional institution to better help the
people affected by the criminal justice system.
The basic purpose of prisons is to separate criminals from society as they serve time for
punishment and ideally learn to correct their wrongful actions. While other methods of
rehabilitation have been incorporated over time, there has been a “movement away from a
proactive approach to corrections toward a reactive model that focuses narrowly on containment”
(Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:12). Society has imposed a viscous stereotype to criminals
that promotes the caged method of incarceration and creates moral objectification against the
prisoners. Incarceration has been on a steady increase, especially with the War on Drugs

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movement. Increasing populations has led to harsh conditions of overcrowded living conditions.
The Western Virginia Regional Jail (WVRJ) has dorm style living conditions where the inmates
are bunked on top of each other. Limited mobility to the prisoners is innate in this structure due
to the nature of a violent and dense population. The prisoners are told where to go and when they
can move, to an extreme, as their routine is scheduled and they are escorted by officers. Prisoners
report that the lack of autonomy “is severely painful for people behind bars” and that frustrations
build when “they are not given sufficient explanation for why decisions are made” (Fleury-
Steiner and Longazel 2014:39). This may seem necessary to an extent, but the very nature of
human social life is based on the ability to move and congregate. The removal of all personal
choice “reduce[s] the prisoner to the weak helpless dependent status of childhood” (Fleury-
Steiner and Longazel 2014:39).
An even more extreme example of the prisoner’s confinement and limited mobility is the
use of isolation by officers. Solitary confinement “limits virtually all aspects of [the prisoners]
behavior” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:40). There is no sentence of solitary confinement
handed down by the courts, but it is ultimately up to the discretion of officers in the prisons.
Justifications are not made to as why certain people are put in this isolation, but “officials have
become willing to take aggressive measures [isolation] to maintain control” (Fleury-Steiner and
Longazel 2014:39). WVRJ did not show what the solitary confinement was like at their facility,
but the holding room where prisoners first enter had very small rooms with only a mattress on
the floor. When the inmates would act up, even in isolation, they would place magnets over the
windows in the cell. This is similar to covering a bird cage to make the animal quiet down, but
prisoners are humans and should be treated as such. This punishment is often seen as retaliation
or a means to easily control difficult inmates.

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This limited mobility and communication is detrimental to the prisoners in the way that
they are deprived from their social support. The prisoners are isolated from the community and
from their loved ones that are left at home. When the prisoners are permitted to have contact
from loved ones, the phone calls are limited and everything is recorded and monitored by staff.
In the increasingly rare visits, prisoners are subjected to strip searches and often no physical
contact is permitted. At WVRJ, face to face visits are no longer allowed, unless it is with a
lawyer. Prisoners are stripped away from any human contact that could be beneficial and keep
them in touch with the outside community. Normal human conversation and interactions are
nearly impossible.
These conditions play an important role in creating or worsening psychological problems
for the prisoners. In the most extreme cases of isolation, the psychological effects are “on par
with those experienced by concentration camps” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:42).
Symptoms of the effects include, but are not limited to, “irritability, aggression, rage, paranoia,
hopelessness, depression… ,suicidal ideation and behavior, deteriorating mental and physical
health…, and post-traumatic stress disorder” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:42). Almost all
who are put into isolation see these symptoms. Prisoners in the general population also have the
“psychological trauma of having to live with a constant threat of victimization”, creating an
environment of constant anxiety and worry (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:48). While
WVRJ has excellent medical services to assist with the inmates’ conditions, further research has
shown that this is well beyond what other prisons have available.
Prisoners generally come from stressful backgrounds before their entrance into the
criminal justice system, which makes them more susceptible to mental illness. In fact,
“approximately ten percent of all jail and prison inmates appear to meet the diagnostic criteria of

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mental illness” which increase their needs for care and treatment (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel
2014:16). Sadly, solitary confinement is “commonly used as a way to deal with the crisis of
mental illness in prisons” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:44). Prisons are capturing a
population of people in need of care and putting them in an environment with the opposite,
detrimental, conditions.
While constant psychological stressors harm the prisoners, general medical care and
health conditions are below what would be normal in the general public. Conditions in the
prisons become increasing unsafe as the population increases and “rates of victimization in the
prisons are higher than in the general public” (Meade and Steiner 2014:131). Prisoners describe
the violence in “Scared Straight” programs by telling of how they are “extorted, beaten, and
perhaps sexually assaulted” (Meade and Steiner 2014:129). When dealing with these health
problems in prisons, there “is a gross lack of staffing and resources” (Fleury-Steiner and
Longazel 2014:14). The goal of officials in the prison is safety, which can be compromised with
increasing movement around the facilities to receive medical care. The displacement of concern
between safety and health of the prisoners, who are legally under the care of the institution,
leaves “profoundly inhumane consequences” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:14). The
inadequate medical attention for inmates “may literally mean a slow and painful death” (Fleury-
Steiner and Longazel 2014:16).
The brutal conditions of being incarcerated not only affect the prisoners, but expand into
the community. Rates of incarcerated women have shown “a seven fold increase” since 1980
(Holsinger 2014:90). Prisons have just recently started to incorporate women’s needs into
programs at the facility. Gender equality in the criminal justice system strives to sentence
equally, making use of the mandatory sentencing for drugs that women are typically being

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convicted of. This largely ignores the role of parenting and leaves many children without family
structure. Incarcerated women, largely coming out of poverty, “are often heads of the
households and mothers of young children” (Holsinger 2014:92). Motherhood is a part of
women’s identity, and although their crimes do not reflect on their parenting abilities, they are
punished and taken away from their children. Generations have shown that “half of all boys
whose parents do time will wind up behind bars themselves” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel
2014:20). Children that grow up in conditions of instability and poverty face detrimental
challenges that will follow them through the years.
For women, there are more challenges than being deprived from their families. Women
are entrenched with inequality by their race, status, and often in prison settings- their race. This
group of women in the criminal justice system makes “up one of the most oppressed, vulnerable,
and invisible groups in society” (Holsinger 2014:89). Generally speaking, female crime is non-
violent, “being incarcerated for minor drug offenses”, which puts them at a low risk to endanger
society (Holsinger 2014:91). These women have been victimized before they enter the prison,
but conditions in the system just reinforce their fears. It is not hard to see where the women’s
anxiety comes from when “seventy percent of the women reported one violation of rape or a
serious sexual assault” (Holsinger 2014:92). Rates of mental illness are high, added to these
extreme stressors of incarceration, so “medication, often psychotropic drugs, is the most
common response to women’s mental health needs” (Holsinger 2014:94). When the women get
into a therapy program, “the counseling they receive in prison [is] largely ineffective” due to the
size of the program and inattention to their specific needs (Holsinger 2014:96). The victimization
and inadequate programs effecting this vulnerable population “exacerbate women’s problems
while they are in prison, and actually increase the likelihood of re-offense” (Holsinger 2014:99).

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Recidivism is a major concern for everyone who enters and works for the criminal justice
system. The majority of people who are sentenced to time in prison will return at some point to
their community. This poses an issue of how they will react to the changing conditions and if
they can manage not to return back to prison. “Reducing recidivism is a goal central to the
creation of prisons” but employees of the system are not held accountable for imposing this
(Cullen, Jonson and Stohr 2014:264). The staffs of the prison are accountable for every aspect of
the prisoners’ lives, but they do not have adequate “education, training and experience” to deal
with the multiple issues thrown at them every day (Cullen, Jonson, and Stohr 2014:66). Without
the tools to create a safe environment for the prison and the knowledge to address issues facing
prisoners, it becomes hard to have a successful incarceration where there is low recidivism.
Violence from staff is often used when dealing with prisoners, partly because of the
inadequate ability to deal with the pressing issues. While certainly not all staff participates in the
following actions, it is an ever increasing problem in the prison system. Violence in prisons has
become socially acceptable and the norm for dealing with troublesome inmates. Actions used by
staff has been militarized due to the growing population in prisons and the violent actions are
seen as “quite normal” (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2014:49). Beatings, abusive language, and
extreme force are “seen as legitimate by guards and [occur] routinely in prisons” (Fleury-Steiner
and Longazel 2014:51). The prisoners facing these beatings often require medical treatment. In
extreme cases, lethal weapons and dogs have been used on the prisoners to regain control by
officers. Officers face a difficult job of keeping safety and order in prisons, but the end often
does not justify the means.
Change in the prison system must come to provide humane conditions and reduce the
recidivism rates. This begins with the staff and structure of the prisons. By the very nature of

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putting criminals together, it compromises safety and increases the risks for victimization.
Directly relating population and conflict shows “higher custody levels have higher rates of
misconduct” (Meade and Steiner 2014:135). The question arises as to how there is a way around
this when it is the very nature of a prison? Prison populations need to have a safe maximum
capacity, below the current norm, that allows full functions of the programs in place.
Overcrowding raises the tensions of the prisons as officers are put under stress to keep order in a
chaotic environment. The very basic issue of this problem is mandatory sentencing on drug
crimes, when alternate methods such as the “use and acceptance of rehabilitation, restorative
justice, and reentry programming” (Cullen, Jonson and Stohr 2014:259). By controlling the
population, officers will potentially have more room to express understanding rather than the
constant worry of danger.
To look further at recidivism, reformers of the criminal justice system make programs to
try and help inmates become functioning member of society. Many inmates have never had a
confident social support, praise, or basic achievements. Programs put in place at the institution
keep inmates busy during the day, which is good for control and officers’ security. The programs
also gives the inmates something productive to do and to express creativity and fulfillment,
rather than sitting in a cage like an animal. Religion based programs teach virtue and morals to
help inmates cope with their criminal behavior and plan for their entrance back into society.
Programs such as gardening and Puppies for Paroles give the inmates work to do with their
hands and produce things that benefit society as restitution. Many prisons have classes in place to
help inmates get their GED, citizenship, or to teach them a technical skill so that they have
something for future employment. The achievement that a prisoner receives while they pass the
time can make all the difference when preparing them to return back to the free community.

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While prisons all show different amounts of violence, certain managerial styles are
thought to work best for keeping order in the institution. Both the officers and inmates share a
“value of living in a safe and orderly environment” (Meade and Steiner 2014:131). A high
control model allows for easy functioning of the prison. The relations between officers and
prisoners are formal and there is mutual understanding of the expectations. Swift punishments
and rewards with little input from inmates keep control while various programs leave room for
personal expression. Maximum security also helps to keep control. There are important for a
smooth running facility, but often can be disrupted by over population and over worked guards.
Visiting the Western Virginia Regional Jail gave an important insight into the conditions
at the jail. Because of the staff trying to make their institution seem up to the highest standard,
some sense of what prison was really like for a typical inmate was lost. After all of the research,
WVRJ was not the picture that was described in text. The facilities at WVRJ were clean,
effectively ran, and had multiple different opportunities for prisoners. The medical department at
this facility was of the best possible for the situation of incarceration. It seems that these
conditions may be better than most of the living situations for inmates before they were
convicted. It is inspirational to see what the best of incarceration could be, but it also made it
difficult to understand the true reality. Leaving WVRJ, another facility was needed to compare
the conditions. Horror stories are entrenched into the literature about prisons, but this facility
seemed to go against what was expected. If prisons were mostly like WVRJ, reformation of the
system may not need to continue. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. This
conflicting image of prison conditions leads to further needed investigations.
Prisons are functional in the idea of maintaining control in society, but the execution of
the institution seems to cause more harm than good for the people incarcerated there. Prisoners

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are affected by brutality, ineffective medical protocol, and lack of basic human rights of
autonomy. These detrimental factors stem outside into the community and cause problems for
future generations. Women in prison face victimization along with the stripping of their family
identity. There is no enough room to comfortably house the prisoners and the staff is often not
equipped to deal with the conflicts they encounter. Reformers are making strives to add extra
programs and better the environment for the prisoners to help reduce recidivism. Although there
are facilities like the Western Virginia Regional Jail that have made great improvements for the
conditions of incarceration, there are more left behind in dark ages of inhumane cages and
excessive force. Future policy must decriminalize non-violent acts and make use of alternative
measures of rehabilitation.

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References
Cullen, Francis T., Cheryl Lero Jonson and Mary K. Stohr. 2014. “Lessons Learned: From Penal
Harm to Penal Help”. Pp 257- 267 in The American Prison: Imagining a Different
Future. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holsinger, Kristi. 2014. “The Feminist Prison”. Pp. 87- 106 in The American Prison: Imagining
a Different Future edited by Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson and Mary K. Stohr.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Meade, Benjamin and Benjamin Steiner. 2014. “The Safe Prison”. Pp. 129- 145 in The American
Prison: Imaging a Different Future edited by Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson and
Mark K. Stohr. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fluery-Steiner & Longazel. 2014. The Pains of Mass Imprisonment. New York, NY: Routledge.