TRUE — Jail and Prison Conditions — Galsworthy Criminal Justice Reform Program

Jail and Prison Conditions

Even if an inmate's sentence is not oppressively long, their treatment while incarcerated can still constitute subhuman treatment. Prisons are not medical facilities, but they regularly are forced to deal with mental health problems and care for elderly and terminally ill inmates. Food, if it's even edible, usually lacks enough nutrition for inmates' health to not deteriorate. Plus, with a lack of opportunities to see family, read, or gain skill sets, inmates are placed in buildings which lack any resemblance of the civilized world.

A prison program in Connecticut seeks to find out what happens when prisoners are treated as victims

“Prisoners report past abuse at rates up to twice that of the general population. Youth who get caught up in the criminal justice system have experienced chronic trauma at rates triple those of youth in the general population. A study of people who spent time in prison, conducted by sociologist Bruce Western, found that 42 percent had witnessed a violent death as children. Advocates of criminal justice reform are beginning to catch up with what social scientists have shown for years: The correlation between being the victim of a crime and committing crime cannot be ignored in serious conversations about sending fewer people to prison.“

The Conversation

March 7, 2019

Prison ProgramsPhillip ReevesMarch 7, 2019The Conversation, Connecticut, TRUEComment

Jail and Prison Conditions

Galsworthy CJR Program

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