An Analysis of the Prison System's Effectiveness and Impact

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of the prison system, exploring its effectiveness, impact, and consequences. It examines the perception of prisons as 'schools for crime' and the potential for inmates to become more violent and corrupt. The essay discusses the ineffectiveness of the prison system due to its focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation, highlighting Norway's successful model. It delves into the traumatic experiences of imprisonment, including emotional and psychological effects like depression, isolation, and the development of defense mechanisms. The essay further compares imprisonment with other forms of punishment, analyzing the social, biological, and psychological consequences of incarceration and considering the effects of abolishing the prison system, and its impact on the individual and society. References from various sources are used to support the analysis.

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Introduction
Many people have decribed prisons as ‘’schools for crime” and others term the prisons as
“breeding grounds for crime”. Actually, new data shows that a prisoner is more likely to commit
other crime ones they get out of prison. Incarcerating criminals makes them learn new tricks of
the trade. The perception that if you go to prison, you become more violent and corrupt when
you leave is true. This is because most of the conversations in prison generally revolve around
drugs, crime and gossip of who will do what to whom (Chin et al., 2010). Even while in prison,
there are offenders who commit crimes and plan new crimes when they get a chance to get out of
the prison facility. It has been worse because some gang leaders or shot callers who are
influential in the prison facility engineer crimes by using the offenders who have been released.
One of the reason why prisoners come out worse than they went in is than some aspire to be the
kingpins in the prison hence they must prove that they can indeed become by committing more
serious crimes both inside the prison and when they are released so that they can go back. The
prison system has lacked effectiveness in that once an offender is incarcerated there is nothing
that motivates them to change their ways even though some people may say that the decision is
purely made by the individual whether to change or not.
According to experts in restorative justice, the reason why prison has become ineffective is
because the system has been set up as a harsh penal estate instead of a place where the offender
can experience transformative rehabilitation. Norway is one of the countries that has managed to
transform its prison system into a rehabilitative experience and the data shows that it is among
the countries that have the lowest reoffending rates in the world (Hartnett, Novek and Wood,
n.d.).

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This person needs to be reintegrated into society by learning that their behavior is socially
unsuitable, inculcating correct behavioral values and encouraging respect for other road users.
The prison curriculum must seek a re-education aim accompanied by programs or measures
aimed at identifying and addressing the causes that are in the genesis of particular crimes(Inciardi,
2010).
Effects of imprisonment
When a person is admitted to a prison institution he is going to suffer a traumatic experience that
will inevitably alter his emotional state. This phenomenon has been studied over time by many
researchers and has been called in different ways among them "jail", prison effect, and has even
been described as a process of mourning for the loss of freedom.
It is usual that, when relatives withdraw from the prison, the prisoner's state of mind subsides.
The interns are well aware of this depressive problem they call the term "jail". The daily life of
the prisoner is brutal (Hartnett, Novek and Wood, n.d.).
Everyday life, which was outside before imprisonment, has died and what follows is mourning.
A duel that the prisoners describe as "death in life",a prolonged period of depression, apathy,
anguish and rebellion. How to cope with loss and withstand the anguish of this new reality that
cannot even be constituted as such for the person? Imperceptibly, defense mechanisms will be
put in place to provide some form of self-protection. The most usual are the denials: "I will not
ask to be brought clothes because I leave in two days"; the rationalizations: and the projections:
what do I do here surrounded by delinquents?

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Later they describe the stages of mourning for offenders in seclusion between the emotional
shock
"The first reaction is unbelief. Subsequently, the aggressiveness, the rebellion. Manipulation is
what characterizes the third stage, in which attempts at negotiation to achieve freedom, pressure
on relatives, lawyers, etc. begin(Samaha, 2006). Depression and, with it, a sense of guilt,
especially in relation to the children and the family, take over the women prisoners, who fall into
apathy, sleep all day or resort to drugs.
People entering a penitentiary will find themselves in an environment characterized by emotional
isolation, permanent vigilance, lack of intimacy, routine, repeated frustrations and a new scale of
values that, among other things, conditions interpersonal relationships based in the distrust and
the aggressiveness. These subject the prisoner to an emotional overload that will facilitate the
appearance of mismatches in their behavior at best, if not the manifestation of frankly
pathological behavior, especially if previously there was already an unbalanced personality, at
the time of entry into prison
The entry into the jail initiates a process of adaptation to the penitentiary environment, which
many psychologists call prisonizatión and that is divided in three levels of affectation, the first
consists basically in a regressive behavior, immature, anxious and unstable from the point of
view affective as a response to entry to a Total Institution such as jail. In the case of an adaptive
failure, a second stage would lead to real behavioral disorders, mainly marked by aggressive
behavior, the appearance of depressive affective deterioration or the presence of episodes related

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to anxiety disorders in different manifestations, either traumatizing or in the form of acute
anxious episodes (Hartnett, Novek and Wood, n.d.). At a third level of this process of
deterioration, severe mental pathology will appear, with psychotic outbreaks, severe affective
disorders, abnormal experiential reactions or serious anxiety crisis and mal adaptation to the
prison, which would advise the inmate's hospitalization(Merino, 2013).
Achievements of imprisonment from other modes of punishment
Imprisonments serve the following purpose as compared to other forms of correction;
Punish-It is clear that society must have an order, which cannot be chaotic or anarchic, and that
is why the criminal system has a fundamental function. But there is no single study that shows
that prisons help to reduce crimes(Parmelee, 2011). In contrast, investigations by the Brennan
Center for Justice, for example, have shown that once a criminal has committed a minor offense
he is more likely to commit serious offenses. This is even more likely when the inmate is not
given a humane but degrading treatment, because the prison institution is shifting from its
rehabilitation function to focusing on punishment (Meade, n.d.). That is when prisons are
assimilated to hell.
Something that is usually forgotten in societies where human rights are permanently violated:
once a prisoner enters a country's prison system, the government has an obligation to take care of
it, to help maintain its dignity. The reverse is a crime.
The proportion of suicides within prisons is much higher than that outside prisons. What
accounts for this difference?

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The fact that a person is in social isolation generates a series of effects. If to this we add that it is
about penitentiary isolation this is exaggerated even more(Conklin, 2013). Humans to build 'our
self' need social interaction. By not having it, we stop being feedback and rebuild our identity,
since this identity is built through interaction. Therefore we will see very fast the effects at
physiological level: less memory capacity, mental agility, concentration. In isolation this is
accentuated much more and if it exceeds 15 days, they generate sequels that can become
permanent(Parmelee, 2011). The effects are devastating right away because it generates a social
disconnection and a very large social isolation, without interpersonal contact, that can bring
consequences such as psychotic disorders, schizophrenia, more isolated personalities, paranoia’s
(Meade, n.d.) .
There are many studies on how an inclusive, positive environment that reinforces social
development can prevent and mitigate the effects of mental disorders. The same thing happens
when there is a deprivation. Isolation creates conditions that can precipitate mental disorders.
The psychological damage is always, however, the type of damage and the degree of affectation
and will depend on other factors such as the length of stay, whether the person suffers oppressive
techniques or torture and also individual factors.
Consequences of abolishing the prison system
Prisons or prisons are institutions authorized by the government to imprison and isolate from
society those individuals who have disobeyed the law. Prisoners are locked up and deprived of
their liberty for months, years and, in some cases, their whole lives(Conklin, 2013).

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Social: family problems, social and labor isolation, social learning problems, skills to relate to
others and stigmatization. Especially this last element is determinant in the learning of new
habits when leaving the prison; a strongly stigmatized person will hardly find work and will be
marginalized at an informal level (Meade, n.d.).
Biological: deprivation of liberty can cause an increase in the instinct of attack by not being able
to flee. It also causes problems of sexual or sensory deprivation problems (vision, hearing, ...).
On the other hand, at certain ages a state of clear isolation can cause serious alterations of the
development, although this does not happen in the prisons of the democratic states
Psychological: Psychological effects are a reality for inmates with problems of self-esteem, drug
use, anxiety, learned helplessness, dependency, etc. In addition, if used for many days in a row,
the isolation cells involve a deficit of sensory stimulation which in other contexts has been found
to be extremely harmful and which can generate the broth to cause psychiatric disorders.
Conclusion
Prisoners are deprived of their liberty. The situation they live and the behavioral deprivation to
which they are subjected make their stay in prison causes different physical and psychological
consequences at several levels (Meade, n.d.). Finally, acceptance is, in general, very difficult for
these women who in what we observe seem to go through the first four stages repeatedly.

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References
Chin, V., Brown, R., Dandurand, Y. and McAskill, E. (2010). Handbook for prison leaders. New
York: United Nations.
Hartnett, S., Novek, E. and Wood, J. (n.d.). Working For Justice.
Conklin, J. (2013). Criminology. Boston: Pearson.
Inciardi, J. (2010). Criminal justice. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Merino, N. (2013). Criminal justice. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Meade, B. (n.d.). Moral communities and jailhouse religion
Parmelee, M. (2011). Criminology. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Digital Library.
Samaha, J. (2006). Criminal justice. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
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