Our Prison System: How It Works and Why

Change is Necessary
Ashley Hicke - March 24, 2018

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of prison is a place of confinement especially

In order to really understand if prisons are enacting positive long-term changes within
our country, it is important to understand the fundamentals of prison systems and how
they work. There are several types of prison, including juvenile, military, psychiatric,
minimum/medium/high security, federal, and state prisons. Juvenile, military, and
psychiatric prisons serve specialized groups of people, such as minors and inmates with
mental illnesses. Minimum, medium, and high security prisons are meant for various
crime severity and lengths of sentences. For the case of federal and state prisons,
federal prisons are controlled by the country, while state prisons fall under state
jurisdiction.

It is obvious that a vast budget must be intact to adequately feed and house the 2.3
million people who are held in prisons around the country. An astounding $182 billion of
costs belong to our prison systems annually. This includes the cost of basic upkeep of
the prisons, prisoner food and care, judicial and legal costs, employee costs, costs to
families, and several other costs. Due to the truth that the budget of such a large system
is complex, there are various circumstances included in the budget that take a toll on
the function of prisons. For instance, almost half of the budget is spent on paying the
staff of prisons. Since this group is so crucial, it is protected, which blocks most prison
reform. Also, only $4.5 billion is allocated to indigent defense, even though the
Constitution requires that defendants receive counsel even if they cannot afford legal
representation. Over time, states have been reducing this even further due to the
growth of caseloads. An increase in money for defense could prevent false charges and
reduce the number of prisoners. Unknown to the public eye, there are groups that earn
profit through their work within prisons, and their dependence on a large population of
prisoners to earn money prohibits much reform. Among these groups are private
prisons, bail bond companies, specialized phone companies with monopoly contracts,
and commissary vendors. By allowing specific groups to have protection or profit and
decreasing the budget for a specific area that highly benefits prisoners, especially those
who come from poverty-ridden backgrounds, there is little possibility for reform.
The main concern for the functioning of prisons is the prisoners themselves. Obviously,
prisoners do not wish to go to prison, but do they feel that prisons positively affected
their behavior and rid their lives of crime? Prisons should not simply be a long-term
punishment that results in no real change. Prisons should not simply be houses full of
violence and mental deterioration. Prisons should be centers for rehabilitation and
change. Anthony Cruzado, a prisoner of Santa Rosa Correctional Institution on the
documentary show Lockup: State Prisons claimed, “This is not no rehabilitation, this is
punishment to me.” Prisons must hold some element of punishment, in order to serve
their full purpose. However, in order to actually reduce crime rates, there must also be a
system of rehabilitation in which prisoners are given skills that prepare them for reentry
into normal life. In the case of Anthony Cruzado, he nearing the end of a five-year
sentence but was afraid due to his inability of surviving in the real world. He also
believed that prisons do not adequately treat those with mental illnesses, like himself. If
all prisons had a system in place that provided inmates with job and life skills, education,
and psychological aid, more prisoners would be fit for leaving and would be less likely to
fall into a cycle of crime. Much of the crime present in our country is also linked to
poverty, so by preventing ex-prisoners from getting stuck in a poverty-filled life, it also
prevents them from engaging in more crime. Prisons need more fundamental values
focused on rehabilitation in order to solve a baseline problem that the prison systems
need to focus on: elimination of crime.

I had the privilege of speaking with Dan Swartz, a former correctional officer at Kansas
State Penitentiary. He informed me about both the logistics of the prison he worked at
and some personal stories of his encounters. I learned that Kansas State Penitentiary
fortunately did have programs in place to aid its inmates, including religious and mental
health programs. He shared many beliefs with those seeking prison reform. These
include the fact that officers require more training than they are receiving, and in many
cases prisons may be understaffed. He also claimed that in order to fulfill the goals of
preparing inmates for release, the inmates should have mandatory programs and more
real world experience. Overall, he agrees that there is a bad stigma attached to
prisoners and they are often just stuck in a cycle, even though they do need to pay for
their crimes. Prisons no longer deter crime because people aren’t scared to go to prison.
If prisons do not serve their purpose of deterring crime, then they need to do more to
prevent future crime by including more rehabilitation.

It is evident that prisons are complex systems with no clear-cut method of reform. With
so many different types of prisons that are located in different areas and controlled by
different groups, they are difficult to compare. A budget that is so immense and
complex is arduous to maneuver, so it is unfeasible to fully remove profit-seeking
companies that block reform. Despite the complication in defining a straightforward
strategy for reform, it can be understood that much needs to be altered in order to
reduce crime rates, and including in this reform should be increased means of
rehabilitation. By understanding these ideas, there is a greater possibility of reform in
the future so that a positive impact may be made by those affected by our prison
systems.