NCJ Number
79270
Journal
Police Product News Volume: 5 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1981) Pages: 24,26,28,30-49,54,56,58
Date Published
1981
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This series of six articles portrays life in America's prisons and their impact on inmates and correctional officers.
Abstract
The film 'Hard Time' is reviewed in the first article. The film portrays life at Stateville Prison in Joliet, Ill. Drug trafficking, homosexual rape, relationships between inmates, death row, and the psychological implications of death in the electric chair are portrayed, along with the overall negative impact of the prison experience. Still, the reviewer does not consider that the film portrays the extent of degradation characterizing life in most prisons. In another presentation, the history of Pennsylvania's prisons is outlined, and inmate programs designed to prepare them to live and work normatively after release are described. Still, prison life overall is viewed as a detriment to equipping a person for positive adjustment in society, and increased offender interaction with normal community life is urged. The third article presents inmates' views of prison life in California, where the increasing overcrowdedness of the prisons makes conditions inevitably dehumanizing and dangerous. Inmates say they have little hope that they will even survive prison life unless they become hard and violent--hardly a preparation for a law-abiding life after release. Correctional officers' views of their work and the inmates in California prisons are presented in another article. A photographic essay of life in Michigan's Jackson Prison is presented, showing the weapons and results of inmate violence. In the concluding article, an inmate at the Nebraska State Penitentiary describes the psychological impact of prison life.