Should Prisoners Deserve To Be Victimized Essay

Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice.

Sentencing the Victim Throughout Sentencing the Victim, Joanna Katz was victimized more than once. During Joanna Katz process with the criminal justice system, she showed courage and strength. According to Joanna’s father, “When sentencing the offender, the victim gets sentenced too because as long as they are locked up, we are sharing that sentence with them.” On numerous occasions Joanna gets victimized from the actual criminal acts, to going to court every year for each offender.

It shouldn’t be that way. For those who commit a lower-level crime like drug possession, petty theft, or selling marijuana, prison is not just unfair, it is also a bad sanction for society at large. Reduce sentence minimums and maximums currently on the books. If someone commits a serious crime, like robbery, they should be punished. But there’s little evidence that staying in prison for such long periods of time, such as the 20 or 30-year sentences imposed, will rehabilitate prisoners.

The article also discusses how sexual aggression plays a very large role in violence overall, due to an inmate who is a sexual aggressor who uses violence on their victim and then the victim retaliating against the aggressor using violence, a type of behavior that is comparable to the eye for an eye ideal. Furthermore the article explains some of the other reasons that inmates get into fights, including, “accidental, real, or imagined insults combined with hypersensitivity, homosexual activities, pressuring for possessions, racial conflict, informant activities, and retaliation for past assaults.” Lockwood illustrates that there are several reasons that inmates are violent and that these are only a few of the reasons. Then the article states a study on when and how the violent acts were instigated, stating that of the 114 incidents observed 42 of them begun by “sexual overtures accompanied by offensive gestures and remarks,” 36 of them started with “polite propositions,” 21 of them starting with physical attacks and 15 of them beginning with verbal threats.

They have become alienated by society, and are strangers to their friends and family. The psychological impact of incarcerating an innocent or undeserving individual can be detrimental. Post-victimization disorders such as post acute stress disorder and PTSD can cause emotional detachment, despair, hostility, and increased risk of various phobias (Polifroni, 2018). Unwarranted subjectivity to extreme punishment and condemnation leaves victims with a host of potential social, emotional, and psychological deficits including distrust, dependance on institutions, diminished self-worth, post-traumatic stress reactions and more (Haney, 2002). The process of being incarcerated brings about several psychological adaptations, brought about by the extreme demands of living in prison.

Even the innocent get sentenced major years for crimes that weren't even committed by them. Sentence reforming needs to take action.

They are limited to the things they get to do, things they read, and who they talk to. The inmates themselves think that sitting in solitary “creates monster” and

The placement of so many people into prisons for general, popular, frequent non-violent crimes has lead to such an extravagant number of people inside the walls used to punish people of horrific

The justice system in the United States of America is not fair. Michelle Alexander writes a great article “Locked Up In America” describing how people gets into the justice system and how their life is when coming out of jail. People that are convicted of any crime they are labeled as criminals and felons. Criminals does not get properly punished for their crimes if they did they wouldn’t be so many people going in and out of jail. The justice system should have different ways of punishing a person according to the crime they commit, just by putting them in jail and assuming that is going to change them is not a good way of going about that.

Prison is not the best place to be in, you’re held in jail for breaking the law and you get punishment. Though the punishment is very cruel. Anyone would have felt unsafe being with other criminals and locked up with no way out. In the same article as the previous on, about St. Clair Holman in Alabama it stated, “On the night of March 11, prisoners’ frustration over living conditions at Holman finally boiled over. Aguard responding to a fight between inmates was stabbed.

Inmates are constantly violated by cellmates and prison guards, both physically and sexually. Violence is often associated with prison gangs and interpersonal conflict. Prison guards are bribable and all kinds of contrabands including weapon, drug, liquor, tobacco and cell phone can be found in inmates’ hands. Crime within the fence is rampant, only counting those with violent act, 5.8 million reports were made in 2014. If the prison is really what it claims to be, shouldn’t prisoners be serving their time with regret and learning to be obedient?

It can affect someone in many ways, whether relationships, mental deterioration, trust issues. While being in prison many learn to cope with the trials and tribulations of imprisonment but the lasting impact of knowing deep down in your heart you had nothing to do with the crime you are being accused of, that makes you lose a certain sense of hope and lose faith in people and the justice system. Finding a means to manage prison violence must have been a struggling reality, not only that being publicly accused of a crime, have your name and reputation tarnished for the years of the trail and the time you are incarcerated everyone builds a negative mental image of you and judge you before you can justify

This also affects the overcrowding problem since nearly 50% of all prisoners who are released from prison, just end up going back to prison within a short amount of time because they have to resort to illegal means in order to make a living because that is all that they know how to do. Another issue that prisons in the U.S are facing is the inhumane conditions that prisoners are still forced to live in where they lack availability to healthcare, access to basic necessities, and unacceptably high levels of abuse and violence within prisons. According to the article “Prison Violence Overview” by Study.com, “around 20% of inmates report being victims of sexual violence, and 8% of prison deaths are related to violence”. Out of the 1.2 million prisoners in the U.S as of 2021, that is around 240 thousand prisoners that reported being victims of sexual violence in prisons. This not only reinforces how there are still many problems with the prison system in the U.S, but it also emphasizes that these issues are contributing to the worsening state of prisons and prisoners welfare.

Jacoby says that those who oppose corporal punishment may argue that it is “too degrading” or “too brutal.” Jacoby mentions that, in today’s society, incarceration is “an all-purpose punishment, suitable -- or so it would seem -- for crimes violent and nonviolent.” However, Jacoby believes that it is prison that is degrading and brutal.

Poor living conditions in prisons emerged because judges were inclined to send more people to prison than the space that was provided. Therefore, prisons became over crowed and hard to handle. Living spaces in prisons got smaller and more prisoners has to share their place with someone else. Security at the prisons also fell downhill, as male guards saw the women and young children as prey for rape. Most prisoners were either brutally assaulted and/or rape while in