Effects On Prisons On Inmates Essay Example for Free

Effects On Prisons On Inmates Essay In the premodern times, societies used to mutilate bodies and cut off the heads of their culprits as a way of punishing the wrongdoers. However through a series of imperceptible measures of reform and development, punishment became less physical and less directed to the body of the offenders as people became more civilized and the prisons replaced the gallows. They stopped locking up the insane in asylums and began forms of treatment in institutions which had features of both hospitals and prisons, (Alan Gary 4). In most parts of the world, it is taken that a person convicted of serious crime should be sent to prison. Countries like the U.S, where capital punishment has not yet been abolished, a small but significant number of people are sentenced to death for what is especially considered as grave crimes, (Angela 3). The condition of prisons in the past was a nightmare to both the country as well as the society as they were damp, dark, and noisy. Prison wardens were brutal, poor diet and miserable portions of food were given to prisoners who were usually dressed in rags and suffered from many diseases which were not treated in time resulting to poor heath of the inmates. All these inhuman acts were however viewed by the wardens as a way of punishment to prisoners and therefore the prisons lacked a sense of reformation and charity as brutal acts were directed to inmates. According to (Thomas 602), Inmates who entered prison capable of moral improvement went back in to the society as impure, hardened and irreclaimable persons as there was no separation of sexes, classification of age and character therefore the convicted felon corrupted the untried and innocent prisoners. The unfortunate According to (Douglas Eric 2004), military officers in Iraq used dogs to intimidate prisoners. This was one of the several tactics they adopted even without approval from their seniors. They set strict limits on Red Cross access to prisoners and delayed them and accused them of, unannounced visit to the cellblock where the worst abuses occurred. There were also unreported incidents in which Iraq prisoners died after being questioned by American interrogators. Initially, imprisonment was based on punishing wrongdoers by inflicting suffering of the body. However, today’s imprisonment is not only an acute form of corporal punishment, but as a way of working on a persons mind and body through three areas which include: punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation. Prisons are intended to allow the society remove criminals from them place them into an institution for reformation, persuade them to avoid activities which are not beneficial, and in time become productive and law abiding citizens. However this well thought plan is not put in place due to the bad experiences in prisons hence the initial meaning of prisons is not realized by the society.   The main objectives and responsibilities of prisons are to safeguard inmates and maintain and improve welfare of everyone in it. Safe guarding involves keeping inmates locked away and controlled while having moments of recreation, education and counseling. However, it should be realized that psychological freedom depends on relations with others and that it is what the prisoners experience in this world, attain satisfaction and avoid its detrimental effects and not the education or counseling that decide how, if ever, they will emerge hence life imprisonment of an inmate does not add to his becoming upright. It should therefore be remembered that offenders are drawn from societies where possessions are related to personal worth unlike in prison where they are reduced to a level of bare possessions. Lockups, isolation, condemnation and rejection dehumanize prisoners resulting to psychological discomforts to prisoners. A Prisons aim is to cure and straighten the bad behaviors of criminals, however their record has not been encouraging and instead they are found to do more harm than good as the pains of jail confinement affect all prisoners in different negative ways most of which destroy a person instead of reforming his or her past bad behavior. The need to quickly adapt to prison life and withstand prison shock, exposure to a new culture and maintain outside links like keeping in contact with family and friends becomes frustrating to prisoners. The prisoners must therefore determine their way of passing time which affects the great deal and this end up affecting them psychologically. (Tosh 43). All these question the practice of life imprisonment of people since instead of reforming them they end up becoming worse both in their behaviors and their psychological status. Prisons therefore should be opposed to the idea of locking up people for the rest of their lives to avoid more harm than good to them. (Alison 14-19), came up with several negative effects on prisoners as a result of imprisonment which therefore opposes the idea of life imprisonment. First is that imprisonment can be detrimental both to physical and mental health of prisoners particularly with regard to long term and aged prisoners. Though many prisoners receive medical treatment in prison that would be unavailable to them outside, the health risk of imprisonment are high, uneven and specific to the condition of confinement. For instance, Scottish prisons have reported increased risk of HIV and hepatitis B and C transmission due to random sharing of injection equipment, tattooing and unprotected sexual intercourse. One study estimates showed that 36% prisoners had injected themselves intravenously and 12% had anal intercourse at least once while in prison. Post- traumatic stress is second where its psychological effects apply to certain group of prisoners who have shown symptoms of PTSD in medico-legal assessments. Such symptoms can have debilitating effect and are associated with difficulties in restoring and maintaining relationships. High level of anxiety, disturbed sleep, chronic depression, withdrawal and persistent feeling of being different from others and from previous self are described by clinicians working with former prisoners. There may also be physical symptoms like increased arousal, outbursts of anger, difficulties in concentration and hyper vigilance which are associated with increased alcohol and drug abuse.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (Davis 322) in the third effect argued that inmates’ family and dependants suffer most. Despite considerable progress in understanding immediate and long term effects of separation trauma upon children, the impact of imprisonment upon the children of prisoners includes increased behavior disturbance and later delinquency, depression and feeling of low self esteem, behavioral disturbance and deterioration in school performance. Imprisonment and distance from crime is another effect which results to informal social control which suggests that social bonds like employment and marriage may inhibit offending. The imprisonment reduces opportunities to achieve relational and economic stability and therefore increase re-offending. Imprisonment also weakens the bonds and makes them difficult to re-establish hence suffering a significant source of legitimate or law abiding behavior and therefore imprisonment becomes part of the cycle of delinquency and crime. Another effect is on imprisonment and prison staff. Power especially overuse has dehumanizing effect as the culture of masculinity characteristic of prison staff bring a range of emotions and new emotion management techniques. Some of these techniques can lead to hardening, distancing and distrust. The process of adaptation could lead to enduring changes in their character and family life to preparedness to respond to danger. Imprisonments also result to some prisoners using sexual assaults and rape to make them feel powerful. Many of them use this assault to make them feel powerful than others and also express their manhood. The victims as a result are affected psychologically by being stressed, having nightmares and resulting to criminal activities and some forms of self destructive behaviour. The main solution to all these problems is to avoid inmate staying for a very long time in prisons since they tend to be harder than before and that certainly does not cure inmates rather it makes them more aggressive. Others is by ensuring good living and health conditions for the inmates, counsel them on how to handle people and relationships within and outside the prisons especially their families, provide good counseling facilities on the negative effects of using sex as a tool to feel good and demoralize other inmates. In conclusion prisons and punishments that are given to the prisoners do not necessarily bring a positive change of behaviour.In most cases they end up destroying the person as he or she becomes immune to the situations, therefore putting a person in prison for the rest of his/her life does not ensure behavior change and should therefore opposed. WORK CITED Angela Yvonne Davis Are prisoners obsolete? Seven stories press ISBN 1583225811, 2003 Alan Hunt and Gary Wickman Sociological jurisprudence Pluto press ISBN 0745308422, 1994   Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt New York times 21st May 2004 Joanne Mariner and Michael Bochenek punishment before trial Human rights watch org ISBN 1564322017, 1997 Tosh John The pains of imprisonment sage publications California 1982

Article About Email Privacy :: essays research papers

TO:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Justin Bridges, division manager SUBJECT:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  SUMMARY ON E-MAIL AT WORK I am writing this summary in response to your request. I am using an article titled â€Å"Caught up in the communication loop should email at work be curbed or nurtured† by Hilary Freeman. Major Points The author Hilary Freeman discusses how email at work can interfere with our jobs but this new form of communication can be a good thing.  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Job communication. Stephen Roberts a freelance copywriter says, â€Å"I was working the offices of a large television company. Nobody spoke to each other- virtually all information was communicated by email.† There were times when he would tell his boss he had finished a project and his boss would tell him to send an email and wait for instructions.  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Communication replacement. Psychologist Guy Fielding does not think that email is replacing other forms of communication. Guy doesn’t think the telephone will be used less because you will still use the telephone when talking to people you know and when you want to set up an interview face-to-face. Guy also thinks that when a new type of communication comes out it is overused at first. He says that the email jokes will eventually stop and just important information will be received through email.  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Email is a tool. A psychologist at the Open University named Adam Joinson says that email has many benefits. â€Å"It’s a great tool for brainstorming, decision making and getting diverse groups in organizations- such as marketing and accounts- to talk to each other.† With email you can think about a response to a question and not have to worry about silence when you’re face-to-face. It is also nice when you have a message to deliver to a lot of people, this way you will be sure not to forget anyone. Adam thinks that when people can’t see each other then they tend to disclose more information. When using email we can concentrate on the message and not the way we present it. Strengths and Weaknesses I think the strength of this article is on how well it supports the ideas of using email as a good source for sending messages in the workplace.

Middle passage of slavery

One of the dark periods of the world’s history is the trading and exploitation of black slaves. The economic expansion in Europe and America through agricultural lands brought a growing demand for labor hands. European traders seized the opportunity by supplying Africans to be sold as slaves. Sources included Kongo and Ndongo (which now became Angola) and Senegal, although major trading took place ion the Atlantic Coast of Africa. As demands for slaves increased, trading spread in Eastern Africa (Perry 227).   Nowhere can one find a more profitable business than slave-trading during these period, which remarkably spanned for about four centuries (15th to 19th century) of continuous trading, estimated to reach about 20 million slaves (Ferguson and Bruun 569). At the height of trading during the 17th to 18th century, a trader who sold one male slave is guaranteed to make more than enough a year’s earnings. In England, a trader can even gain respectability since its society saw nothing wrong with this kind of business and was not regarded as illegal. It is not surprising therefore that many Europeans were lured by the promise of making a big fortune out of slave trading, to the detriment of Africans who were taken captive. The desire to make a sizeable amount of money and the insensibility of land owners had blinded them to see that these Africans were fellow human beings and should be treated humanely. A significant aspect of the entire process involved partnering with Africans. While it is shocking to see how one race could brutally treat another, it is more startling to see how a fellow African could exploit its own kind. Fellow Africans play a key role in helping European traders to succeed. They are responsible for the capture of their own countrymen, snatching and detaining them to a slave factory located at the western coast of Africa (Hibbert 127). Many do not reach the coast, since they could not survive being forced to march as far as 1,000 miles chained and with little food. Those who do were forcibly held in the factory, where working conditions were deplorable and food was scarce. Detention could range from a number of weeks to a year. These African human smugglers would exchange their ‘goods’ for guns, fabrics, metal products for weapons and farm tools, beads, or even cowry shells and other insignificant items brought by their European counterpart (Perry 2 29). Slave trading then became a lucrative business. There were written accounts of the horrific conditions with which captured Africans were subjected to. One captive slave named Olaudah Equiano vividly described through his own experience, the ordeal of many African slaves (Winds of Revolution 123). For this reason, some slaves had come to regard death a blissful way of ending the hardship. From the onset of their captivity to the point of slavery, slaves were deprived of any right to choose for themselves. Slaves were regarded more as a piece of property than a worker. Men, women, or children, common or of noble descent, all were taken captive for selling. Their ‘fate’ totally depended on the hands of their captors and ‘owners’ (Ferguson and Bruun 569-590). I. The Slave-Trade Route and The Middle Passage The course of trading by the Europeans involved different stages. The Middle Passage was usually associated with the trans-Atlantic shipment of human cargoes either to the Americas or the Caribbean. Strictly speaking however, the term was used to describe the second of a three-part stage of a trading process which includes the transportation of captured Africans. This also meant that traders are able to make a big size of income since every stage is able to produce a large amount of profit. The first part starts with the Europeans carrying goods to Africa that will be used to trade-in for the African slaves. Upon completion of negotiations, the now empty vessel is now replenished with purchased humans. The Middle Passage or otherwise known as the â€Å"middle† leg then begins — the second part of the trading route. This voyage would often take two to three months before reaching America or other destinations in Europe. During bad weathers, the trip could stretch as long as four months. Those who survive the trip were sold and the huge profit was used to purchase products such as sugar. The traders will make another huge profit, as they sell these goods in their return trip to Europe, the last part of the voyage (Winds of Revolution 122). II.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Conditions During the Voyage Those taken to the slave ships were treated worse than animals. The decks were cramped and did not leave much room for standing. Men and women in shackles were packed closely. They were required to lie on their backs, with their heads on another slave’s leg. Such a horrible position caused them to lie down on human discharges of another’s feces, urine, and at times even blood all throughout the passage. The air was putrid for breathing. Consequently, such poor conditions in cargo ships led to the rapid spread of diseases that took the life of many these people. Those who died were thrown overboard to keep sickness from spreading further. In order to control any rebellion, the crew often resorted to cruelty. Women were often abused sexually. The poor physical conditions within the ship, the lack of food, the cruelty of their captors, and the uncertainty of the future caused others to attempt suicide. Traders however, would want as much as each slaves to survive, simply for profit’s sake. When a slave attempts to commit suicide through self-imposed starvation, the method of force-feeding was used.   Others sought death by jumping off the ship. If it is of any consolation, members of the crew’s ship were treated just a little better than the slaves. Others also experienced being severely beaten by their captain. One account even records of a crew who sought his watery death than continue the agony of being repeatedly beaten (Winds of Revolution 124-129). III.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reason for Choosing Africans as Slaves When Spain and Portugal took off plans for exploration, it ended in human exploitation. As they reached and colonized parts of the Americas, Native Americans proved extremely difficult for forced labor since they were unaccustomed to agricultural work. They also exhibited poor resistance to Old World diseases. Their familiarity of the surroundings made it extremely difficult for the Europeans to prevent them from escaping. Meanwhile, a small portion of Africans slavery was already being practiced in its outposts in Africa. Europeans had taken the idea from an African practice of enslaving war prisoners.   African characteristics were also observed to be a lot better: Africans were found to be more useful and stronger than the Native Americans. Since they were used to a hotter climate and agricultural work, Africans did not easily fell prey to European diseases. All these factors caused Europeans to rely more on Africans for slavery. IV.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Conclusion The practice was deeply rooted in greed. Actions to counter slavery met with great resistance and were relatively slow. It even tore America apart during a bitter civil war. The dispute concerning slavery continued for many generations between those who are for or against it. England passed the abolition of slavery in 1833 and anyone caught violating the law was fined as much as â‚ ¤ 20 million (Checkland 341). Other European nations also followed suit. Towards its abolition, great damage was already done on the economic, political, and social aspects of Africa. Since wealth was concentrated on slave-trading and possessed only by a few hands; acquired wealth was not used for the development of the land to benefit its entire society. Africa lost much of their human wealth and for four hundred years, suffered the consequences — losing potential leaders and good laborers for its own advancement. Those transported became alienated from their culture of origin (Perry 231). As for the following generations of those people who were transported, the struggle still continuous for people of color even thousands of years after the abolition of slave trading in America and the Western countries. Many still feel the sting of living from the taint of stereotyping created by the past. It left a legacy of racism present in some parts of society today. Although the practice should remain buried in the past, looking back on this bitter history should keep aflame all efforts to prevent it from recurring again. Traders before referred to it as a necessary evil. However, no amount of reason should be sufficient enough to allow anyone to exploit or even look down on its fellow human being. Works Cited: Checkland, S.G. The Rise of Industrial Society in England, 1815-1885. Great Britain: Longman, 1964. Cowell, Alan. Killing the Wizards. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Ferguson, Wallace, and Geoffrey Bruun. A Survey of European Civilization 3rd ed. USA: The Riverside Press, 1958). Hibbert, Cristopher. Africa Explored: Europeans in the Dark Continent (1769-1889). London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1982. Perry, Marvin. Unfinished Journey: A World History. USA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983. Winds of Revolution AD 1700-1800. USA: Time-Life Books, 1991.

The Existence Of Shakespeare s Macbeth - 1554 Words

Predating the existence of Shakespeare s Macbeth, the supposed natural characteristics of both men and women were viewed as having an inverse relationship with each other. A notion that is still widely held, albeit sometimes subconsciously, to this day. According to this belief, each gender by nature possesses very specific character traits that are both equal and opposite of that of the other gender. Ideas such as strength, power, and dominance are believed to be naturally male attributes. While concepts such as compassion, nurturing, as well as submissiveness are traits typically viewed as strictly belonging to females. These arbitrary archetypes were set in stone even during the time of Shakespeare. However, Shakespeare challenges these notions in in play Macbeth by having both male and female characters display innate traits that are typically not associated with that of their sex and then illustrating how that attribute affects them. Shakespeare is suggesting that these widely a ccepted ideas of what it means to be a man and a woman are merely a human construct and that there are no such set rules as to what personality traits are predispositioned that are based solely on gender. Femininity is defined by fragility, kindness, sensitivity, and gentleness yet the female characters in Macbeth negate this perception by either providing evidence that refutes this claim or turns the entire concept on its head. Most notably Lady Macbeth, whose very first appearance in theShow MoreRelatedMacbeth Final Soliloquy828 Words   |  4 PagesMan s natural ambition is to thrive and achieve power. This ambition tends to be realized through wealth, relationships, social class, or faith. Ultimately, the goal to succeed is simply reflective of the underlying desire to justify one s existence. Without justification, life becomes meaningless and one becomes numb to the world that surrounds. 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