By Maggie Barilka
Prison today is not all friendships and contraband potlucks, as it is depicted in popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black.
Instead, the millions of Americans currently incarcerated, nearly 2 million to be exact, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, face largely punitive practices that are reminiscent of Jean Valjean’s experience in 19th century French prisons, as depicted in the classic novel Les Misérables. In a supposedly progressive society, it is disturbing to think that the theories and possibly the tactics of punishment used in a novel first published in 1862, more than one-hundred and fifty years ago, are still relevant to prison experiences today.
When people read or watch the experiences of Jean Valjean, who is sentenced to nineteen years of imprisonment in the form of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread, they often feel that the situation is unjust. At least that’s how I felt the first time I was exposed to the hardships at the beginning of Jean Valjean’s story. However, we do not have the same reaction to America’s prisoners, who are often sentenced to equally as unfair or unjust sentences, with little to no rehabilitation incorporated into their punishment. Many sit in their cells 23 hours a day, only to get an hour to bathe and possibly some recreation time. Others are in lower security, but serve much more as a almost cost free work force than anything else, as described by white collar criminal Matthew Kluger in an interview while incarcerated. Just as Jean Valjean learned nothing from his laborious prison sentence other than to hate and aggress, much the same goes for the prisoners in America’s modern prisons who sit with no meaningful tasks nor motive for reform.
Rather than focusing on rehabilitating prisoners to ensure their stay in prison is their only one, the American system as it stands serves to punish its inmates for long periods of time, without giving them the life skills they need to re-assimilate into society after their sentence is up. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, nearly half of all offenders are serving time for drug related crimes, and yet many receive little to no treatment for addictions. When prisoners experience such hard conditions while incarcerated, including isolation and lack of education, assimilation back into society in a productive, legal way proves to be very difficult. This is likely why re-incarceration rates are so high, and it ultimately becomes a vicious cycle. In fact, according to the National Institute of Justice, two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years of their release. More than half of these arrests occur in the first year.
Previously incarcerated people are highly stigmatized, and this greatly affects their ability to start fresh when they get out of prison. This phenomenon is not new by any stretch of the imagination. Similar to Jean Valjean, who is released on probation after nineteen years, they have no direction at all. He has no job, nowhere to live and no one to rely on to get back on his feet. He resorts to robbery, as the people around him in the town of Digne, where he goes after he is released, look at him with a sort of disgust. Isn’t the idea of imprisonment that the person is punished and then they can reenter the world with a clean slate, having paid for their wrongdoings? I would argue that this is a complete fantasy.
People who have legal records face inherent judgement, even after serving their punishment, and this is a problem in their reintegration into society. I propose that the only way to fix this is through prison reform, focusing on education and rehabilitation in a way that gives former inmates skills and ability to stay out of prison for good. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
More productive members of society do good things for the economy, the job market and ultimately, the country as a whole. It is a black spot on the American identity that we have some of the highest incarceration rates in the world, despite being a center of wealth and freedom. Ironic, right? So, let’s stop treating our prisoners like they belong in 19th century France with the likes of Jean Valjean, and start treating them with respect and dignity, in hopes of a brighter future for our nation as a whole.