In his essay, “The Interview Collection,” incarcerated writer Emmet J. Rufus argues and demonstrates through a collection of short interviews and experiences that prison does not rehabilitate. In fact, according to Rufus, “Prison creates and breeds crime,” because “rehabilitation has been taken out of the prisons.” When he entered prison he was in need of help. He was hopeful that in prison he might receive that help and “expected at some point during my incarceration, rehabilitation would come because that’s what prison was for, right?” He goes on to say, “All I saw was prison teaching us new ways to commit the same and different crime.” Rather than providing the mental health care and educational opportunities for prisoners to allow them to develop the skills they need to re-enter society after their sentences are up, the prison reinforced the mechanisms that led to his incarceration.
Although private prisons receive a lot of concern over their level of prisoner care and health, approximately 83 percent of the more than 1,600 prison facilities in the United States are operated by the states. Additionally, since private prisons focus on making a profit and are privately owned, they can reject prisoners who may have health problems or concerns. This means that for the majority of prisoners who have mental or physical health problems when they enter the prison system, the responsibility of their care falls to the states. Furthermore, conditions in the prison can lead to both mental and physical health problems for the incarcerated. Thus, increasing the number of incarcerated that will rely on the state to provide care while they are incarcerated.
Rufus notes that “basically 1/3 of inmates (in Ohio) released from prison return for one reason or another.” He argues that there are a few reasons why that’s the case. First, they do not receive the necessary skills while incarcerated to productively rejoin society.Secondly, he argues that the problem runs deeper than the prison system. He notes that “almost 80% (sic) of inmates in prison across the U.S. have spent time in foster care.” He goes on to argue that “most foster parents only foster for the extra income.” Because of this, young children growing up in a foster home do not receive the care and nurturing that can help lead them away from a life of crime and drugs. Indeed, growing up in an environment where the parents only accept you because they can profit works to train the child that their lives are worthless. As Rufus argues, this early stage of life “is an area where rehabilitation needs to start.” Truly, what Rufus is critiquing is the systemic ways in which primarily people of color and the poor are condemned to a life of incarceration (in prison and through foster care), and moreover, how punitive this system has become over the last half century.
Indeed, carceral historians have demonstrated how programs for rehabilitation fell into crisis during the late-1970s. Before the crisis in rehabilitation, the prison provided drug addicts with methadone to help kick their drug addiction. Prisons and jails had educational activities to keep the prisoners active and learn skills to use after being released. However, the 1970s marked a punitive turn in drug laws and incarceration. Historians argue that this punitive turn started with New York State governor Nelson Rockefeller who introduced the Rockefeller Drug Laws which targeted the street-level drug pushers and users. These laws mandated longer sentences for a number of felony drug convictions. Additionally, prison administrators sought more punitive control of the prison itself and increased the use of solitary confinement and other measures to limit prisoner movement and freedom, such as banning certain books or limiting prisoner communication. Also, a prison building boom in the 1980s combined with reduced spending on welfare programs and education and increasingly punitive sentencing programs, all of which targeted Black people, led to a massive increase in the number of people behind bars. During this period, incarceration increasingly became more about punishment than rehabilitation. In this way, as Rufus shows us, the state moved from rehabilitation centered incarceration to a punitive style of incarceration designed to punish. Conclusively, for someone like Rufus who grew up in the foster system and went almost directly to prison as an adult, the punitive turn by the state gas adversely affected their entire life.
Add Comment