On December 9th the biggest prison strike in U.S history was carried out in seven Georgia state Prisons. Five days later and four prisons still remain in lock down. Inmates acquired cell phones by buying them from guards and organized a peaceful strike. Inmates refused to work or leave their cells until their demands were addressed. The demands included better medical care and nutrition, more educational opportunities, payment for the inmates labor, more just parole decisions and an end to cruel and unusual punishment.
Elaine Brown, the founder of the new group Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners Rights, and former chair of Black Panther Group, talked about what life was like in Georgia State Prisons on DemocracyNow. Some of these conditions are overcrowding of prisons and cells, no activities besides the work they are required to do (which they are not even paid for, lack of any basic human conditions, bad food, poor health care, lack of nutrition, and no educational opportunities. Work in the prisons includes cleaning floors, cleaning bathrooms and shower area, maintaining prisons, and yard work.
It is arguable that the work done in prisons goes against the 13th amendment, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude. Though it can also be argued that these prisoners committed a crime in which they are now being punished for. Even so, the role of the American government is to protect the rights and interests of the American People. The penal system was created to help those who did wrong and help them become law-abiding citizens.
Providing education for inmates would help make the inmates law-abiding citizens. Education would give the prisoners the tools they need to turn their life around and get a paying and honest job. Right now the economy is in such a bad state that it hard for even citizens with a clear record and a good education to find jobs. In my opinion, many people turn to crime because they don’t have the tools they need to survive in the real world. Of course, there are some exceptions.
Not paying inmates for the work they do and only giving them $25 when they are released from Georgia State prisons makes it hard to survive, especially if they have no money or a job. Sending these ex-convicts back into the real world with not enough to survive is pretty much setting them up to fall back into crime.
Being surrounded by violence, especially violence incited by guards, doesn’t help the inmates at all. It creates anger and more problems and doesn’t get them into the mind set to be a law-abiding citizen. Even though prisons are supposed to help create law-abiding citizens it seems that the prisons are actually pushing the inmates back into the realm of crime. If some of the demands were met that the prisoners made, I think it would go a long way in helping them become better people. I also think that the fact that these prisoners staged a peaceful strike instead of a violent strike should be rewarded.
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