Part of the reading specifically addresses life in prison; that is what prisoners’ day to day life is like and its impacts on prisoners’ mental health.
After completing the reading, I’d like you to watch two parts of a video series (~11 min total) by The Marshall Project
Links to an external site.
called The Zo.
“The Zo,” short for what one prisoner used to describe prison as The Twilight Zone, [is] based on a large archive of letters compiled by the American Prison Writing Archive, written by prisoners in the U.S.. It is based on a study of the struggle between prisoners and their captors, waged not with fists or weapons but with deliberately disorienting rules and impossible tasks. E.g., how guards mess with prisoner’s heads. Those incarcerated try to keep their grip on reality by clinging to details—days until parole, prices of items in the commissary, the minutiae of routine.
It is important to remember while watching these short videos that the controversy around prisons that is being discussed here is not about whether people who break laws should face consequences. Most Americans, on either side of the political spectrum, would argue that people who break the law and/or pose a danger to public safety must face consequences. Rather, as discussed in your reading this week and last week, the controversy is about what corrections should look like and what the overall objective of corrections should be. I.e., what kind of justice should the system seek (retributive? rehabilitation?) Should corrections be about rehabilitation (preventing people from committing more crimes)? Or should it just be about punishment?
The point of these videos is to show that prison is overtly punitive, and that because prisoners become so disoriented, it is difficult to imagine that their experience would be rehabilitative.
After you’ve watched Part 1: Induction and Part 3: Retaliation (each ~5.5 min), reflect on what you saw by answering the questions at the bottom of this discussion board. Then respond to the posts of least two other classmates.
Part 1 Link:

Part 2 Link:

Continued next page……

Respond to each of the following questions.
● What surprised you about what you saw in Part 1? Or if nothing surprised you, why not?
● What surprised you about what you saw in Part 2? Or if nothing surprised you, why not?
● Tie what you saw with what we read about this week. How does what you read match up (or not match up) to what you read about life in prison?

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