The Saddest Yard: The Reality of Punishing Prisoners, Punishing Ourselves

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Our nation is home to less than 5% of the world's population and 23.4% of the world's prison population (Walmsley, 2009). In some states “the state's prison population is ‘growing so fast we can't keep up,’” (Biedka, 2010). My main issue with this is that at least 61% of the men and women in our prisons are repeat offenders, which we are paying for with our bank accounts and otherwise (1998). It is ironic that for over half the people currently serving time in our prisons they have gone through the entire “correctional” and “rehabilitation” experience at least once before. And “ironic” is me speaking softly. So, why is this our reality and how can we change it? Because it is OUR reality collectively and OUR responsibility to change it.

Some do recognize the ineffectiveness of our prison system and spend energy and money attempting to improve it. I hold a high regard for those people’s efforts, but I mostly see them wasting their time on the symptoms, rather than the source.

As we all know coercion and violence dominate our state’s actions. We spend over half our budget on military expenses. Add to that our tax money going to prisons and the administration of criminal law and… well you get the point. Our state also spends our money on many things to be proud of, such as schools, parks, libraries, and community centers. However, there is a gross imbalance. In addition to the money we throw at violence, we must become aware of our violent actions. We allow our nation’s men and women, our neighbors, to endure poor medical care, rape, gang violence, and being pressured into sexual activity in severely overcrowded buildings where these inhumane conditions cause unnecessary deaths. And we endorse it. We do this because we want revenge and we believe that this method of treatment will “teach them a lesson,” that it will deter them from further criminal activity.

However, these actions of our state (which are a reflection of our actions as individuals) “are founded upon a mistake, namely, the idea that fear is the strongest and best sanction for group action and association” (Gregg, 1960). In reality, violence and severe punishment have proven unavailing and damaging to our prisoners and to our society. Fear is disruptive and therefore cannot be the foundation for unity, and without a strong sense of unity our society will continue to produce criminals and endure the suffering they create. We must admit this and demand a different way.

When a criminal does reform his/her life it is not the result of forceful punishment or suffering, but rather the “stimulus to some latent for potential goodness in the individual.” Such positive stimulus comes from positive treatment, and not from force. “If force were the true cause of rehabilitation, its effectiveness would increase with repetition.” Instead, we know that it does just the opposite and we know this because 61% of people behind bars are second-time offenders. If violent methods are not the way, then might we consider nonviolent ones?

For incarcerated individuals such methods may include, though are not limited to, proper medical care; a healthy diet; psychiatric treatment; general education; training in an occupation and assistance securing employment once released; respectable living quarters; and opportunities for normal living. Some of these methods are being implemented and are contributing to genuine reform in individuals. I propose we take it a step further. It is commonly believed that a group is only as strong as its weakest link. It follows then that we must serve and rise up the weakest in our society. In order to do this let’s offer the resources to our lowest that we do to our highest. Let’s train prisoners in music, a visual art, dance, or theater and give them the opportunity to express themselves through this medium, rather than through violence. Let’s give them the opportunity to engage in personal development and team building through ropes course exercises known to enhance cooperation, decision making, trust, self esteem, leadership, goal setting, teamwork, and self confidence. Let’s instruct them in the invaluable practices of meditation, self-reflection, prayer, and centering. Or better yet let’s offer such services to every young person in the United States and in doing so invest in preventative methods necessary to keeping our citizenry out of prison. (Preventing the members of our communities from committing crimes and being incarcerated a first time is a topic I will explore in a different blog post).

For those who do not commit violent crimes, or even contribute to violent crimes occurring, we should not send them to prison…as we did a couple of men for ten years who used packing materials formerly considered illegal when exporting lobster from Haiti to the United States (2010)! We should only incarcerate violent offenders. This will save you and me millions of dollars, as well as allow quicker reform of criminals so that rather than sitting in prison they become cooperative members of society. I do not want to pay for the food, clothing, bedding, electricity, water, security personnel, judges, judicial clerks, and so on for a person caught performing insider trading to hang out in a prison yard. I do not think you do either.

Overall, I do not care whether the crime committed is blue-collar, white-collar, or tie-dye. I do not care whether it is violent or nonviolent. I would prefer we reformed criminals and guided them into roles in which they can benefit society through their skills and talents, rather than pay for them to sit in jail for an arbitrary amount of time, and then be released in the same or worse condition as when they entered the jail cell only to continue engaging in criminal activity, because they honestly see no other way to survive.

We must also create a wiser court system. Our criminal courts should decide whether or not a crime took place and the facts. Nothing more, and nothing less. From there each case should be logically and humanely handled by doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers, employment agencies, and others trained in the area of rehabilitation, not fear and punishment. We need people who hunger and thirst to help criminals become good citizens, not good prisoners.

With that said prison reform is dependent upon an overall much needed social reform, as the violence acted out by our state is a direct result of our own attitudes and tendencies. No doubt there are incurable criminals among us who “are the inevitable product of existing defective familial and social processes and penal systems” (Gregg, 1960). This will not change unless our society changes. The primary condition we should devote ourselves to, including our energy, money, and time, is the unity of mankind. We must learn to transcend differences and promote the common welfare of all. Once we develop a permanence of these societal elements we will stop producing criminals and we will enjoy the fruits of a healthier society.

I challenge you to release your confidence in punishment, your desire for revenge, and your belief in the lie that threatening violent punishment deters crime.


(1998). One Reason So Many Felons are Repeat Offenders and How to Fix It. Retrieved from http://geekpolitics.com/one-reason-so-many-felons-are-repeat-offenders-and-how-to-fix-it/.

(2010). Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners. The Economists.

Biedke, C. (2010). Program Aims to Prevent Repeat Offenders, Cut Jail Populations. Retrieved from http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_690991.html

Gregg, R. (1960). The Power of Nonviolence. Retrieved from NonviolenceUnited.org.

Walmsley, R (2009). World Prison Population List. International Centre for Prison Studies. Retrieved from http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/wppl-8th_41.pdf.

U.S. Military Draft - In Effect

Question: When was the last American drafted into the U.S. military?

If you answered during the Vietnam War, I would have to disagree. If fact, if you said anytime prior to today, you are probably wrong. Maybe yesterday at the most.

This is because the current U.S. “volunteer” military is largely a draft of the poor, unemployed, and undereducated. Sure there are a few who grow up planning to join the military, but there are others, MANY others, who do it out of sheer economic necessity. A few months ago I spent a long weekend on Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX. While there, I hung out with probably a dozen young soldiers, all of which enlisted because they could not find a job and either could not afford college or were not mentally ready for college at that point in their lives. Recruiters enticed them with a salary, bonus checks, a buff body, job skills, sharp looking class-As, money for college, “honor,” a brotherhood, etc. It saddened me to meet all these kids who signed up for economic reasons, hoping to never go to war.

Why must the Government lure us in with such things? Here are two reasons. One, because our moral intuitions tell us that killing another human is wrong. And not only our moral intuitions, but also our parents, our former Sunday school teachers, and our Government itself! Each of these groups ingrains in us the fact that killing is wrong, which is great because our moral intuition agrees. For instance, we pay taxes to fund police officers, prosecutors, and investigators because killing is against the law, because it is wrong. We know that if we kill another person the consequence is either capital punishment or life imprisonment.

But wait a second, isn’t the Government that decides and enforces this the same Government that convinces us to enlist in the military; where to kill brings “honor” and medals upon ones’ self?! It is! Now I am confused. My Government says that if I, acting as a civilian, take the life of another human I have committed the most horrific, immoral crime, and will be punished accordingly. But, if I, acting as a soldier, take the life of another human or one hundred humans or one thousand humans, I will be glorified. OF COURSE recruiters must strongly appeal to us economically, and otherwise, because what they’re sponsoring completely contradicts the truth that we both instinctively know and also have been taught (by them)!

Another reason our Government works so hard to persuade us into joining the military is because “[w]ars do not have to be sold to the general public if they can be carried out by an all-volunteer professional military” (M. Kurlansky). I have read that the Vietnam War was hugely unpopular. Although this did nothing in teaching our Government the evil of warfare in general, they did learn to avoid a legal draft, in order to keep people quieter. As a result, we don’t think a draft is taking place currently. We are wrong. “Every time a voice is heard of the privileged, a politician, a business leader, Major League Baseball, Hollywood, one of the millionaires who present television news, saluting ‘the courage of our fighting men and women,’ who they claim – against all logic – are ‘defending our freedom,’ listen closely and you will hear…the rich bamboozling the poor” (M. Kurlansky). Every time a commercial airs such war propaganda as, “Strong. Army Strong” or “The Few…The Proud…The Marines” we are viewing an unfortunate and effective draft of at least the poor, the unemployed, and the undereducated.

A true story: “…Clifford Cornell of Arkansas, three years out of high school and jobless, walked into an army recruitment office in a shopping mall. Interviewed in Toronto [three years later], he said, ‘I didn’t know anything about Afghanistan or the possibility of going to Iraq.’ The Army recruiter had promised that he would never be sent overseas. ‘His job is to lie,’ said Cornell. ‘I have learned through two years in the military that most of what they tell you is a lie. They have to lie to get people to sign up…All I heard is ‘If you sign up for this you get a $9,000 bonus.’ ’
When Cornell learned he was being shipped out to Iraq, he went to his sergeant and said, ‘I’m not supposed to be shipped overseas. The recruiter said so.’ The sergeant just laughed.” Cornell drove to Toronto and deserted. “ ‘It was not an easy choice,’ he said. ‘You are trained in the military to have loyalty to your buddies.’ ”

Cornell’s story, in terms of how he was drafted and the treatment he received in the military, is not the exception.

Young men and women are being persuaded to enlist in the military and it is working simply due to a lack of options. I remember attending Project Graduation the night I graduated high school, in which my senior class stayed up until 6am playing games and hanging out together at a church. Upon entering the church we were each given a t-shirt to wear that night. Inspired from the theme of the night, Dr. Seuss’s “Oh the Places You’ll Go,” the front of the shirt portrayed a signpost offering the Lemon Bay High School class of 2003 a whopping three routes to take after the festivities of that night ended. One arrow pointed to the workforce, one pointed to college, and the third pointed to the military. Unfortunately, the workforce can’t always handle the population of willing workers, as is the current situation. Similarly, young people don’t always have the financial means or the readiness/maturity right out of high school to enroll in college, which are both entirely understandable. The only option left is one in which we the people experience all the disadvantages of a legal draft, while the Government experiences all the advantages of a legal draft.

After you, as a poor, unemployed, or undereducated person, sign up for the military it can do anything it wants with you and you can’t do anything about it, because you willing signed up. But did you?

I urge you to help young people avoid the draft by securing opportunities that actually are voluntary.