87 days left
Blog Entry 37
March 29, 2015
After being in prison for a little while now, hearing people’s stories and observing the “system” in the works, I’ve come across the conclusion that this system is designed to help people fail.
I realize the main purpose of prison is to punish people, but should they not also be trying to help us in some way? Consider say, you have a dog that did something bad like chewing up the couch while you were out or went to the bathroom where he shouldn’t have. Would you just lock him in a cage for a few years and expect him to never do it again? If your answer is yes than you should never own a dog and you should probably just stop reading now because you might not get the point.
The point I’m trying to make is you can’t just lock your problems in a cage and expect them to fix themselves. This is exactly what the judicial system is doing. There is no incentive for these men here to try and better themselves in any way. Not only is there no incentive, but there’s no encouragement or coaching for these men who have no idea where to turn for help.
Pretty much the only encouragement these men receive is “Don’t get in any trouble and you’ll get your 15% good-time credit.” Many people don’t realize that federal inmates are only eligible for a 15% “good-time credit,” while state inmates get up to 40%. Does it make sense that an inmate in state prison for a murder-related offense can be released back into society before a white collar felon in federal prison when both had been given the exact same sentence length? Perhaps that is a topic for another day, but it’s worth thinking about—right?
Maybe if the feds had some programs in place to help people better themselves while in prison there would not be so many who either commit another crime and come back or never are able to live a “normal” life again.
If you have not taken matters into your own hands as I have, most men will be leaving prison worse off than when they came in. This so called “system” is broken and needs a serious overhaul, otherwise we are all in trouble because the incarceration rate in the United States is already sky high, and we have unprepared felons reentering society everyday.
