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Detect safe browsing esta disponible1/3/2024 But when more than 113 million Americans have had a close family member in jail or prison, the social costs can be cataclysmic. If the number of people impacted by prison violence was small, this situation would still be unjust and inhumane. Because escalating conflict is the norm for those serving time in American prisons (often provoking violence as a self-defense mechanism), when they face conflict after being released, they are ill-equipped to handle it in a productive way. Incarcerated people who frequently witness violence and feel helpless to protect against it can experience post-traumatic stress symptoms - such as anxiety, depression, paranoia, and difficulty with emotional regulation - that last years after their release from custody. There is an ever-present fear of violence in our gladiator-style prisons, where people have no protection from it. Our prisons are so violent that they meaningfully impact the rehabilitation efforts for those inside them. In a single week, there were four stabbings (one that involved a death), three sexual assaults, several beatings, and one person’s bed set on fire as he slept. As just one example, in 2019 the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division concluded that Alabama’s prison system failed to protect prisoners from astounding levels of homicide and rape. Because of inadequate supervision, people in our prisons are exposed to incredible amounts of violence, including sexual violence. It is not difficult to understand why our prisons largely fail at preparing people to return to society successfully. The data tells us that people are spending more time in prisons and the longest prison terms just keep getting longer, and thus our system of mass incarceration all but assures high rates of recidivism. And evidence confirms the great irony of our American criminal justice system: the longer someone spends in “corrections,” the less likely they are to stay out of jail or prison after their release. A long-term study of recidivism rates of people released from state prisons from 2005 to 2014 found that 68 percent were arrested within three years and 83 percent were arrested within nine years following their release. Yet our prisons fail miserably at preparing people for a law-abiding and successful life after release. Given those numbers, we should ensure that those in our prisons come home better off, not worse - for their sake, but for society’s as well. Of the more than 1.5 million people incarcerated in American prisons in 2019, more than 95 percent will be released back into the community at some point, at a rate of around 600,000 people each year. American prisons cage millions of human beings in conditions similar to those movies. After such brutal traumatization, is it any wonder that they might struggle to obtain stable housing or employment, manage mental illness, deal with conflict, or become a better spouse or parent? Now imagine that the people living in those worlds return to ours to become your neighbors. Imagine one of those dystopian movies in which some character inhabits a world marked by dehumanization and a continual state of fear, neglect, and physical violence - The Hunger Games, for instance, or Mad Max. This essay is part of the Brennan Center’s series examining the punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system. Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law. Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide.Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide.
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