A Failed Social Experiment

It is peculiar that guards and prisoners have not realized that their interests are aligned. The prison crushes them both. It denies humanity to both. In fact, it operates on the premise of this denial and could not function otherwise.

Just short of quitting their job, guards are forced to dehumanize prisoners daily. Strip searches, solitary confinement, and turning away parents who wish to visit their children are regular occurrences. It’s hard to imagine doing this job without either finding sadistic pleasure or needing to silo one’s humanity simply to earn a buck.

Imagine being told by your supervisor that you need to extract a mentally ill prisoner from their cell by pepper spraying them, beating them, and shackling them to a restraint chair. How does a guard go home and help their child with homework? How does the prisoner return to their own child?

It comes with a cost. Each side pays with trauma, untenable environmental conditions, and lives. Between 2010 and 2015, 16 active or retired correctional officers committed suicide. In 2017 alone, there were 14 prisoner suicides.

Clearly, the prosecutors and judges who fill the prison do not pay the cost of incarceration. It is not paid by legislators who fail to provide sufficient resources to the poor. Guards, prisoners, and their families pay the cost.

It’s time we realize that the prison system is a failed social experiment.