Dehumanization In Prisons

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Prisons, aiming to rehabilitate criminals to the point where they reject illicit actions, fail to accomplish their objective, instead embittering criminals through isolation and substandard treatment, forcing them to view themselves as incurable and inhuman.
On a daily basis, prisoners interact with correctional officers, judges, and other authority figures that degrade them with their condescending attitude. The air of superiority emanated by everyone around them becomes ingrained into their minds, teaching criminals that they are lesser people. Over time, this dehumanization reinforces what the criminal’s conscience is already telling them: they are inferior human beings and can aspire to be nothing more than lowly criminals. The criminal …show more content…
When the criminal reintegrates into society, they feel no sense of redemption; in their mind they are still the worthless, incurable person that prison has taught them to view themselves as. They have been taught that being a convict strips them of all human rights, and they are released into society with all of their rights intact, they cannot acclimate. They still view themselves of inhuman and unable to improve their character. And, after years of being told that they are nothing more than criminals, that is the only thing they can see themselves as, making them more likely to commit crimes in the future and return to prison to begin the cycle again. In this way, the brutal techniques of prison backfire and mentally degrade inmates to the point that they cannot …show more content…
These symptoms, gained over years of harsh prison treatment, distance the criminal from their crimes as they lose their ability to empathize with the victims and also lose their sense of humanity to the point where they no longer feel capable of remorse. Furthermore, a criminal that undergoes this process tends to commit future crimes; the inability to relate to others coupled with psychotic tendencies makes the ex-convict the perfect candidate for habitual violent
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