In other words, somewhere that rampant violence and rape, drug use, gangs, overcrowding, questionable food, and sadistic guards are the exception rather than the rule?
Well, I’ll betcha there’s not much of that in Minimum Security.
I don’t really know how much of that goes on in prisons, and in which prisons, but I had a cousin who was a prison guard for a while, and he wasn’t sadistic. Not aroun us, anyway.
Right, not trying to troll for the families of prison guards, but you get my drift - drugs, violence, and overcrowding are pretty darn consistent across prisons in most countries I’ve heard of.
I suppose the true Super-Super-Max facilities don’t have any of that except for possibly questionable food.
Everyone’s in isolation almost all of the time, and you don’t have direct contact with the guards 99% of the time, so no gangs, no violence, you get your own cell…
And dear Lord, let me go ANYWHERE besides that.
The problem with the prison system is that it shoves a lot of very angry, cruel men in together. There are prison systems where this does not hold true, but for different basic reasons.
I work in a max security prison with over 1500 inmates, and while violence happens, I wouldn’t say it is rampant. Rape happens too, but frankly I’ve been surprised at how infrequently it does happen.
The security staff eats the same food the inmates do, and both the inmates and the staff manages to put on weight over time.
I’ve not seen examples of sadistic guards. Sarcastic ones, yes. Unpleasant ones. But physical abuse seems to be absent.
Of course, we’ve got cameras almost everywhere.
Diversion of legitimately prescribed drugs is a low level on-going problem, but it’s rare that I’m treating someone for overdoses of substances they’re not supposed to have and were smuggled in.
We are overcrowded, but the inmates are generally rotated through the units where we are 3 or 4 folks to a cell when it was only designed for two, so they know if they behave and do their time, they move into roomier accomodations eventually.
Basically, our warden runs a pretty tight ship, the inmates are not in charge of the asylum, gang affiliations are identified and dealt with, and we have the means and the will to enforce the rules well enough to keep order.
Being in a max institution helps, frankly. Anecdotally I have seen and heard more problems coming out of medium institutions than either max or minimum. In my state, anyway.
But anyway you slice it, it is a prison. A village of people who don’t want to be here. So there will always be a certain level of dysfunction, based on that alone.
Everything you describe happens on a regular basis in the “free” society that many criminals come from. Why would you expect prison society to be any different. I’d venture to say that for a career criminal prison would be a break from the uncontrolled violence of the “real” world.
I guess it depends on your definition. What do you consider a prison that “works”. One where the prisoners are happy to be there? Not likely. One where rampant violence and rape, drug use, gangs, overcrowding, questionable food, and sadistic guards are all rare or non-existent? Sure, plenty of them - I’ve worked in several.
You’ve not worked in prison have you old chap?
Is it possible that many of your images of prison are recieved from films, videos, tv shows and printed media especially the low brow press?
How effective a prison is, depends upon what you expect it to do.
So, tell us what you think prisons should be doing, and then we can inform you, perhaps even dispel some myths, or even outrage you over cushy prisons, or whatever, you haven’t really given much for us to go on… except a stereotype, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you by commenting much upon it, but it is a stereotype, a very poor stereotype, its a stereotype that makes for a pretty good dramatic device, but its also a lazy stereotype, as most such stereotypes usually are.
Reality is normally more complex than such stereotypes and reality often demands some assessment and analysis, which is why reality is not usually as lazy as a stereotype.
Just about everyone has an idea of how penal institutions should work, and they base their views on their own steroetypes, so there isn’t always a single exclusive stereotype, and in fact its odd to see how some people can accommodate several completely differant and mutually exclusive stereotypes when it comes to crime and punishment, so that even the stereotypical stereotype is quite a complex thing, but this is still not reality.
I hope this helps.