Inside Out final paper

Aaratrika Bose
Final Paper: Inside Out-pathways of opportunities
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Introduction
City seminars were one of the important elements of the Philadelphia
Program that attracted me to apply. At Earlham College, although there are a variety
of good courses offered each semester, the lack of urban setting and the
conservative atmosphere of Indiana does not give progressive students a chance to
apply the classroom knowledge practically. Therefore, I came to Philadelphia to gain
and gather new experiences and knowledge that I was not exposed to earlier. So, I
decided to take the first step with the city seminar by choosing the “Inside Out:
Pathways to opportunity”. When I selected this course, I did not know anything
about mass incarceration other than the literal dictionary definition of mass
incarceration. However, I have always been very interested in criminal justice
mostly by watching TV series like Law and Order, Suits and Orange is the New Black
but never really had the chance of getting a first-hand experience. Therefore, when I
realized that I had the opportunity to get first-hand experience with it, I decided to
take my chance. The journey through this course has been a huge learning
experience not only in terms of information but also perception.
This paper will outline this learning experience in three sections: process,
content and an area of expertise. Under the process section, I will be discussing
about the individual and group dynamics of the class, perception of others and my own
observation of prison life, mass incarceration and the Riverside Correctional Facility.
In the section under content, I will be discussing about the school to prison pipeline;
The New Jim Crow, The role of prisons and what prisons are for and link my own
narrative to mass incarceration and reflect the economic and social factors that
results in mass incarceration. In the third section under area of expertise, I will be
discussing Prison reforms from abolition and non-abolition view which was my
group’s presentation and analyzing which of these solutions are practical. The aim of
this paper will be to discuss my growth as well as link the readings and experiences
that I have obtained through this course as evidence. Although I came into this
course with little knowledge about the Criminal Justice system or mass
incarceration, after this course I can say that I have definitely become more aware
and passionate about this issue. Therefore, this paper will highlight my self-
discovery as well as my increasing awareness throughout this course.
Section One: Process
The class began with about 25 students that consisted of 13 outside students
and 12 inside students. Before our first class together, we, the outside students had
a separate class where we set ground rules and goals for the coming classes. Most of

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us did not know what to expect including myself. We were told that this was not a
class where we would have the opportunity to do social service but instead this was
a class where we would learn and educate each other. So, with certain questions and
reservations in mind we went to our first day of class together where we first had to
go through an orientation before meeting the inside students. In the orientation, we
were given a list of things that we could do and a list of things we could not and
unfortunately the list of things that we could not do was extremely long. There were
many restrictions and we were repeatedly told to treat the inside students as
nothing more than just students and discuss nothing more than course materials. I
was extremely puzzled when I heard this as I was still struggling to understand how
one can separate personal experiences which are absolutely correlative to this
coursework and not discuss anything about it. However, once we began the class,
everything was very different from what I had previously imagined.
Before I took this class, I had certain perceptions about people who commit
crimes and go to jail that I had mostly developed through watching television shows,
reading books and listening to my parents who still think that anyone who commits
a crime irrespective of the nature of the crime should be locked up to “repent for
their sins”. I also had a perception that most people who are in jails or prison are
mostly from lower socio economic background and probably has no family which
provokes them to commit crimes. I was always made to believe by my parents that
“they” who are in prison are different from “us” who are not in prison. But as the
first class began and people started introducing themselves, I realized that these
women were exactly like everyone else. Furthermore, I felt that some of them went
through traumas and experiences which most people would give up on and yet they
have a smile on their face and approach life with optimism. I realized how
misinformed people are about prisons and prisoners and do not think twice before
labeling them certain terms that are dehumanizing. Something else that really
surprised me was the fact that so many of the women at the Riverside Correctional
Facility were mothers and most of them had families who were struggling to pay
their bail. Most of them had backgrounds or reasons which led them to do what they
did for which they are incarcerated. All of these was an eye opener to me and also
made me believe that one can never learn everything from just reading books and
listening to news. In order to have accurate information about a system, one needs
to be a part of it.
In the first class our topic was on the role of prisons where the inside
students spoke so passionately and were so informative that I felt I was not
informed enough to talk about it. They brought in criticisms and solutions to the

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problems that the criminal justice system is facing right now in intellectual ways
that I could have never thought about. I felt I was not only misinformed but also
lacked knowledge on this issue of mass incarceration. Therefore, I decided to read
more articles and books to better inform myself. In the following classes, the class
dynamics changed a lot. Many had to leave the course either because they were
released or transferred. So, after three weeks except a few faces, most of the women
were new. However, most of the active participants from the first class continued till
the end. The change in group dynamic did bring in interesting students whose
contributions brought in difference to the conversation. Having certain inside and
outside students with family members in the criminal justice system sometimes
created situations where certain conversations got heated up and sometimes
students got emotional. Certain inside students brought in personal perspectives
about certain topics which were beyond any reading or news article. Having no
background in criminal justice or mass incarceration, I would routinely read the
materials before the class well so that I could participate in class discussions. Most
of the class materials were surprising to me at first but they would shock me even
more when I would hear first-hand experiences from the inside students about them
during class. Most of the times, I learnt more from the discussions in class than by
reading the class materials.
As a Politics major, I had read about the war on drugs but never met anyone
who was affected by it personally. I had also heard about mandatory minimum
sentencing for drug crimes but had no idea how big it was until I took this class, read
Michelle Alexander and met people who are personally affected by it. As a child, I
was always told that drugs are bad and drug addicts are worse. So, I always had this
perception of drug dealers and addicts being these “monsters” who were a threat
and liability to the society. However, as I got involved with the students in the
Inside-Out class where many openly disclosed their reason for incarceration to be
minor drug crimes, I realized how flawed these drug laws were and how the society
marginalized the people who were incarcerated for these drug crimes. I realized
that it is this mentality that is increasing the social pressure and trauma on the
newly released incarcerated men and women that is leading them back to the same
place, “the prison” because the society is not ready to give them a second chance.
After this class, I can confidently say that my perception of those incarcerated for
minor drug offenses has changed drastically not because this course acted as the
eye-opener but because I could see and hear stories of troubled background from
the inside students which led them towards this path.

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Prisons in my country are very brutal. They are referred to as “hell hole” and
are very dirty, unhygienic as well as lack maintenance. So, when I visited the RCF for
the first time, I was very impressed by how it looks: shiny, clean and well
maintained. There were real classrooms with adequate hygiene. I thought it
resembled more like a college dorm than a prison. But as I started discussing more
about it to the inside students, they revealed the reality. They said how they were
cramped in their cells with no window, often could not go out and enjoy the
sunlight, had dinner at 3:30pm and had nothing to eat till the morning and above all
the concept of solitary confinement which I was completely unaware of prior to the
class. After hearing their stories and the reality of RCF, it pretty much resembled the
hell hole at home. Prisoners back home are beaten brutally and sometimes are
denied medical care after injury. Here, I saw a clean medical unit and thought that
they treated healthcare of prisoners as serious business. But I was wrong again. The
inside students said how privatized healthcare at prisons diminished the health care
of inmates and was more interested in offering less for more money. They also
complained about the prices of things at the commissary, the minimum wage in the
prison and programs available for rehabilitation; all of which I thought were
wonderful facilities that the inmates had access to indifferent to most countries
when I initially came into the prison. On our prison tour to CFCF, we also saw a
white washed image of prison, pretty similar to my earlier interpretations of RCF.
So, through these repeated attempts of the prison authorities to create a
positive image of prison in the minds of visitors is to establish the fact that they are
trying to create a humanizing aspect of prisons in the minds of the people. Whereas
the reality is very different. There are separate bathrooms for inmates and
Correction officers as well as inmates get tazed or maced frequently depending on
their misconduct. However, the most brutal of all is the notion of solitary
confinement of staying locked in the cell for 23 hours without sunlight or window
and depending on a third party for everything from getting food to showering. All
these made me believe that prisons and miseries are similar everywhere in the
world. The concept of mass incarceration gives rise to a class of people who are
constantly discriminated, marginalized as well as dehumanized just because of the
label of “felon” which haunts them for life. It also creates a cyclic process where once
a person gets involved, the system makes it very difficult to get out. This also affects
families and relationships especially between parents and children and spouses. As
a child, I could have never imagined a life without the presence of my parents. So, I
cannot imagine what the kids of the incarcerated parents go through in daily lives.
All these information exist in books and research papers, but I had never bothered
to look into them or even think about these topics prior to this class. But this class

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served as an eye-opener in pointing out how such a large portion of the society is
suffering in silence for crimes that do not require such harsh punishments and very
less action is taken to combat this problem. RCF being a women correctional facility
highlighted aspects of motherless children and broken families as a result of mass
incarceration. I would have never realized the effects of mass incarceration on
families and kids if not for this class. Therefore, Inside-Out definitely brought out
the evils of mass incarceration in the American society and led us through a process
of self-discovery which was very challenging, yet extremely enriching!
Section two: Content
Role of Prisons inour society
I started this class with little knowledge about mass incarceration and the
United States criminal Justice system. If someone asked me before I took this course,
what are prisons for? I would say that they are for correction and repentance where
people get time to re-evaluate their action behind bars to realize their mistakes. But
after taking the course I realized that the reality is very different. Sherrin Fitzer in
her article All of my friends on Facebook seem to be binge watching Orange is the new
black quoted Audrey Hepburn, “People, even more than things, have to be restored,
renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone”. This quote
highlights the actual role that prisons should have in our society; however the
current situation is very different. Currently prisons have become a place for racism
and discrimination highly dominated by privatization and capitalism where people
of color, blacks and poor of all races are thrown in to clean the society. They are not
rehabilitated or renewed spiritually to give them a ground for repentance but rather
dehumanized brutally by cruel and torturous practices.
Currently, “more than 2.4 million people are behind the bars in the United
States today, either awaiting trial or serving a sentence. They're scattered throughout
a constellation of 102 federal prisons, 1,719 state prisons, 2,259 juvenile facilities,
3,283 local jails, and many more military, immigration, territorial, and Indian Country
facilities”.1 Therefore, it is very clear from these statistics that there is something
else that is leading to this increasing mass incarceration other than just punishing
people for their crimes. This reason is marginalization and discrimination of blacks
and people of color. The war on drugs which was started by Ronald Regan created
mandatory minimum sentences and zero tolerance policies particularly to target
1 Ford, Matt. "The Leader of the Unfree World."The Atlantic.Atlantic Media Company, 23 July 2014. Web.
13 Apr. 2015.

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poor, blacks and minorities. “In New York City alone, officers carried out nearly
700,000 stop-and-frisk searches in 2011. Eighty-five percent of those stops targeted
black and Hispanic individuals, although they constitute only half the city's population.
Overall, NYPD officers stopped and frisked more young black men in New York than
actually live there.” 2 This heightened level of dehumanizing created situations
similar to slavery where blacks were marginalized and segregated with the use of
policies very similar to the present state of mass incarceration where the new war
on drug laws as well as minimum sentences for drug offenses mimic the same
structure of segregation. Therefore, increasingly prisons have taken the role of
caging the black and poor instead of correcting the crime. Although, “Black and
white Americans use marijuana at an almost-equal rate, blacks are 3.7 times more
likely to be arrested for possession nationally. In Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other
Midwestern states, that arrest disparity jumps to a factor of five.”3
Along with discrimination, racism and segregation prisons are also playing a
role in breaking relationships and destroying families. Prior to this class, I was
unaware of the fact “Nationally, there are now more than eight times as many women
incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails as there were in 1980”.4
Women are the least discussed subject in any situation and the issue of mass
incarceration is no different. The situation for arresting women are no different than
males as “Women of all races use drugs at approximately the same rate, but women of
color are arrested and imprisoned at much higher rates.”5 However, women have
histories of trauma or childhood abuse and violence that is often overlooked when
pressing charges against them for drug related issues or any other crimes. But the
real problem is, “the majority of women in prison are mothers and most were the
primary caretaker of their children prior to incarceration.”6 Women in prison often
lose their parental rights and sometimes even miss the entire childhood of their kids
due to incarceration. This also affects the kids as they grow up without their
mothers and sometimes never realize why they never stay with them. According to
ACLU, “Most women in the criminal justice system have little or no access to any form
of drug treatment”7 which completely diminishes the rehabilitation process that was
supposed to be the original function of prisons. Therefore, prisons today have
2 Ford, Matt. "The Leader of the Unfree World."The Atlantic.Atlantic Media Company, 23 July 2014. Web.
13 Apr. 2015.
3 Ibid
4 Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policieson Women and Families.ACLU, Brennan Center & Break
the Chains. April 2005.
5 Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policieson Women and Families.ACLU, Brennan Center & Break
the Chains. April 2005
6 Ibid
7 Ibid

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largely deviated from its original role of correction and supervising those who
commit crimes in the right direction. Instead it has become a dumping ground for
the poor, disadvantaged, blacks and people of color where they are not only
dehumanized but branded as ‘felons’ which starts a whole cycle of marginalization
and discrimination for the rest of their lives.
The New Jim Crow:
Prior to this course, my only knowledge about the criminal justice system in
the United States came from television shows like Law and order and Orange is the
new black. So, it is quite clear that the image and the idea of the criminal justice
system I was developing were not the right one as these shows are good for
entertainment but lack factual information.
Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow” highlights a lot of the
different aspects that the umbrella of mass incarceration covers. Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack Obama’s political success and Oprah
Winfrey’s financial success, Alexander argues that the racial caste in the United
States still exists; just under a new design. Alexander reviews the racial history of
America from colonization under British rule to the Clinton administration,
explaining its transformation into the ‘war on drugs’ and tough on crime policies.
She offers an analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon people who in the
vast majority seem to be people of color and blacks who will be discriminated
against for the rest of their lives. She states in the introduction of her book, “It does
not matter whether you have actually spent time in prison; your second class
citizenship begins the moment you are branded a ‘felon’”. 8 She also focuses on how
both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of
injustice and make us believe that racism no longer exists in the United States.
The detailed history of slavery dating from the exploitation of plantation
workers till the use and segregation of black people was an eye-opener and
extremely informative for a person like me who had very little knowledge of the
racial history of the United States. She describes the phenomenon of people in the
United States finding ways to segregate black people and people of color in different
ways each time one way fails. First it was slavery, then Jim Crow and now mass
incarceration which she describes as “The new Jim Crow”. According to the article,
as crime rates began to rise after the 1960s, most politicians blamed the
desegregation and an increasing influx of blacks into white neighborhoods which
8 Alexander, Michelle.Introduction.The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. 7-25. Print.

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they believed caused most of the crimes to happen. President Nixon’s chief of staff
even summed up the strategy as “The whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to
devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”9
Alexander described how the globalization and deindustrialization were felt
strongly by Black communities as most lost jobs and started getting trapped in
African American Ghettos. The decline of legitimate employment led Blacks to seek
drugs most notably crack cocaine. The Reagan administration used the “Crack” as a
political issue and raged the “War on Drugs”. With the launching of the war on
drugs, other legislations like Anti-Drug Act of 1986 and mandatory minimum
sentences for blacks distributing cocaine were also approved as necessary
punishments. All these different aspects just kept bringing one issue, in particular-
segregation and discrimination of Blacks and people of color. I completely agree
with her comparison of discrimination in employment, housing, exclusion from jury
service, access to education, public benefits and the possibility of denying the right
to vote today as a “felon” to the social and political space of Jim Crow also seems
very reasonable to me. When I used to think about the War on Drugs, I always
associated it with hunting down the drug kingpins and selling dangerous drugs
because that was what was portrayed in the Media. But Alexander’s book proved
both of my assumptions wrong.
These new laws of the war on drugs that lead to mass incarceration today are
definitely as discriminatory as the racial discrimination during Jim Crow. In her
article she quotes a black minister in Waterloo, Mississippi who sums up her point
in a straightforward manner, “Felony is the new N-word. They don’t have to call you a
Nigger anymore. A Felony is a modern way of saying, “I am going to hang you up and
burn you. Once you get that “F”, you’re on fire.”10 So, in order to sum up the New Jim
Crow: Reinventing a system of Social Caste in the U.S, “Mass incarceration
reproduces itself in at least three distinct ways:
 The criminalization of drugs and the use of large scale arrests for low-level
drug offenders, most of them being young and people of color. Their arrests at
young age lead to more time in prison in future for more serious crimes.
 Massive imprisonment of men and women most of whom are parents has now
created several generations of “Children of the incarcerated”.
 And finally, mass incarceration, concentrated as it is in specific urban
communities, alters the ecology of those neighborhoods irreparably, fostering
9 Ibid
10 Sasha Abramsky,Conned:How millions wentto prison,losttheir vote, and helped send George W Bush
to the White House 140 (2006).

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contagion by undermining the social and family support structures that are
especially important for the poorest population.”11
School to PrisonPipeline
According to Decarcerate Pennsylvania factsheet, “The school to prison
pipeline refers to the national trend of criminalizing, rather than educating our
nation’s children. It designates those factors that frequently funnel young people
especially people of color and from low-income backgrounds from the school system
into the prison system.”12 When I first heard about this model, I was extremely
surprised. Why would schools have police and metal detectors to ensure safety?
This concept was unknown to me before I read the readings and heard personal
stories of people during the class. There are policies like No Child left to boost the
overall test scores and zero tolerance policies for certain minor mistakes that would
get students expelled either because they were not as smart as the others or
because they did some silly mistake. Public schools in the United States depend
more on police than teachers as they highly employ school resource officers to
patrol school hallways often with no training which increases school based arrests
dramatically. Growing number of disciplinary alternative schools and juvenile
detention of youth of color, black and those with disabilities because of some minor
disciplinary problems brand them as ‘felons’ at such an early age which put them in
the class of discriminated and marginalized population from welfare, housing,
employment and even college admissions.
Therefore, this school to prison pipeline starts a whole class of discriminated
youth who if not expelled from school could have had access to better lives. One of
the reasons that schools have been using to validate policing and maintaining zero
tolerance policies is controlling misbehavior among students and creating a safer
classroom environment. But according to ACLU, “school removal has negative
economic and social consequences for students and surrounding communities; and
removing students from schools has not prevented or deterred future misbehavior.”13
Therefore, these policing techniques are doing more harm than good. “91
suspensions for every 100 students”14 in the York City district raises concern but
politicians do not seem to recognize it and rather keep decreasing education budget
11 Drucker, Ernest. "How Mass Incarceration Is a PlagueInfectingOur Nation - Literally."Alternet. The New
Press,13 Aug. 2013.Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
12 "Education Not Incarceration:ResistingSchool to Prison Pipeline." Decarcerate PA. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
13 "American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania."Beyond Zero Tolerance. American Civil Liberties Union,
Nov. 2013.Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
14 Ibid

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and increasing the department of corrections budget. Something else to keep in
mind is also the discrimination factor which is no different than the mass
incarceration among adults. According to ACLU, “In the 20 largest districts in the
state, Black and Latino students are arrested at more than seven times the rate of
white students, and Latino students at three times the rate of white students.”15 I think
education is the most powerful tool that can facilitate change to solve the problem of
mass incarceration. But if kids are denied education and are thrown into prison
instead, they already fall behind their peers who graduate school and then college
and then become eligible for employment; whereas the others who end up in prison
due to the school to prison pipeline policies suffer from discrimination which
provoke them to commit serious crimes and thus the problem of mass incarceration
becomes an ongoing phenomenon.
Self-Narrative
Unearned privilege opens pathways to opportunities
Growing up in a country where the medium of instruction in public schools
was different from the one I spoke at home, my parents admitted me to an
international community school so that I could be fluent in English. These
international community schools are designed for kids of a particular community
(based one ethnicity, language or background) where the medium of instruction is
English. Although these schools are relatively cheap, the fees are still significant for
certain students who were not financially very well off. These community schools
would consist of kids from very rich to poor households. Therefore, the disparity
was quite high among the students. Although we had school uniforms, students
would show off their wealth through other means like the car they came in, food
they bought for lunch, jewelry they wore to school or stationeries they brought to
school. Coming from an upper middle class background, I was viewed differently by
the students who were from less privileged households. We would hang out in
groups of similar economic backgrounds. But I somehow never knew how
disadvantaged these kids were till we all applied to the United World College (UWC)
- a pre-college non-profit preparatory two year boarding school. There were around
70 of us applying from my high school to the UWC for only 4 spots. There were very
smart kids in the group as well as kids who did not do academically very well.
15 Ibid

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We all went through all the four rounds of interview together and by the time we
got done with the selection process, we were all pretty sure who would be making it
and who won’t. The selection process was described as “holistic approach without
any consideration of the student’s economic, racial, ethnic background”. I was
certain that based on my performance I would probably be getting the one with the
least scholarship or might not even make it. I was sure about three girls who would
make it based on their performance in the selection process. But as the results were
declared, it was very different. All of the people I thought would make it did not.
Instead, the people I least expected got the full scholarships and I got the next
scholarship in line. I was very happy and at the moment did not think of anything
else. Later, when I saw the three girls who I thought initially would be the ones to
get in, I asked them what went wrong. They said, “Well we were all offered the one
with the least scholarship and because our parents are not as rich, they took us off
the list.” I was shocked. Here is a college that calls itself non-profit and on the other
hand discriminates against economic backgrounds of students. I asked them if they
tried to negotiate and they said, “Sadly there is no point because even if we did,
whatever amount they would have asked us to pay, we would not be able to give it.
You will never understand these things because your dad will take care of it.” This
really was a wakeup call of my unearned privilege that I never really thought about
before. After a year at UWC, when I returned back to Bahrain for summer vacation, I
heard that that two of the three girls were married off because their parents could
not afford their education any longer and wanted to focus on their other male
siblings. This really broke my heart as clearly these girls were better than me and
definitely deserved the same opportunities that I got access to. But due to their
socio-economic background, they became disadvantaged and got deprived of the
well-deserved opportunities.
Even now, I see a lot of my friends struggling with financial aid and college debts
whereas I being on full scholarship do not have to worry about any. I see some of my
friends eating only one meal at college so as to save some money to pay for their
tuition instead whereas I waste some of my meals. Some work for 20 hours per
week and even do outside work to earn as much money as possible. When I started
learning about mass incarceration in the United States, I could link this inequality of
opportunity there. Although not in the similar format, I read about cases where
people are discriminated and marginalized on the basis of race, sexuality and gender
in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, denial from welfare, housing, health
care, basic rights like voting rights as well as denial from employment just because
of a “felon” status resembles the situation of my friends who in spite of
qualifications could not pursue their dreams as their “lower socio economic

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background” deprived them of all the opportunities. Lower socioeconomic status
play a role in the lives of most of those who are incarcerated as poverty is the first
step towards crime.
Most of the people who are incarcerated are charged for minor drug offenses as a
result of lack of opportunities leaving drugs their only alternative just like getting
married was the only alternative for the girls in my school whose parents could not
afford their education any longer. Being born in a certain type of family is not an
individual’s choice but that is generally what decides the fate of a person. I always
complained about how my school could have been better but then when I speak to
my friends who went to school in the United States, they tell me how their school
had metal detectors and zero tolerance policies that are unheard of in my country. It
is shocking to read about the school to prison pipeline as schools in my country are
supposed to discipline and train kids in a way that makes them civilized citizens for
the society in future by using education as the weapon to facilitate change, which is
contrary to what is happening in this country. Viewing students as criminals just
surprises me!
Therefore, when I see these cases and compare my situation, I feel like I have
many things that I did not even ask for. Although I complain and demand for small
things, I often fail to understand that some people would give the world to get some
of the things I have. My unearned privileges have opened doors to various
opportunities for me, whereas my much well deserved friends and many other
deserving ones still linger behind due to the lack of these privileges and
opportunities.
Section three: Expertise on a topic selected to present
Our Group’s presentation was on Prison reform and the concept of prison
abolition. When Aaron first introduced this topic, I was very surprised as I could not
understand what he was thinking by “abolition of prisons”. The first question that
came to my mind was, “where will the prisoners go”? “Will they just be released or
will there be some other kind of supervision”? So, I thought that the best way to
explore this further would be to choose this topic for presentation. Once we got our
groups, we decided to structure our groups into three parts: Background of prisons,
drug on wars and mass incarceration, prison reforms from an abolitionist view and
prison reform from a non-abolitionist view. I decided to choose the reform with the
abolition lens because that was something I had wanted to learn more about and
wanted to know if there are any practical alternatives to prisons. Aaron who had
introduced the topic chose the reform from a non-abolition lens just to challenge his
beliefs.

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While I was researching, I was surprised to find tons of alternatives to
prisons. Furthermore, there were other scholars who are researching this area to
make it more practical in the future. I learned a lot of new things that I would have
never imagined as solutions to prisons and most of them sounded practical. After
our research, we paired into 3 groups of 2 since there were 6 members in our group
and decided to share our contents. Unfortunately, on the day of the presentation,
two of our group members could not make it to class, so we were down to four
presenters. We started our presentation with the summary of prisons and war on
drugs, and then decided to show a video on why prison reform is important. After
the video, I presented on the prison reform from an abolitionist view and then
Aaron presented on the non-abolitionist view. A summary of the contents are
provided below divided into the three areas of the presentation:
Historical overview: (**Courtesy Tyler Teresa and Dolores)
 *1500’s workhouses: first system of prisons used in the US
 *Idea was to have criminals/poor people work to become more useful in
society.
 *1800’s-1900’s drug addiction became problem- opium, cocaine and other
drugs were prescribed
 *First prison was built in 1820’s Eastern State Penitentiary
 *penitentiary idea was to make inmates repent for what they have done.
 1865- 13th amendment: abolished slavery except in the prison system.
Future prison mind set: Repenting meet the workhouse- New Jim Crow?
 Harrison Narcotics Act, 1914, was first federal drug policy. Aimed at
Physician. 5,000 arrested
 1960 drugs became “cool”.
 *1970’s Drugs became public enemy #1- targeting minorities
 *1971 President Nixon War on drugs
 *1973 The Drug Enforcement Agency: created to pressure Mexico to regulate
its production of weed
 *1977 President Carter called for decriminalization of weed, but never came
about.
 *1981 President Reagan war on drugs funded increased spending on the war
on drugs
 *created the “zero tolerance” program-hurt kids in school and created the
school to prison pipeline

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 *President Clinton increased spending on the war of drugs and continued to
arrest people caught with drugs.
 *1973-2015 the war on drugs has been one of the leading factors into mass
incarceration: stats
 *talk about who is making money off the system: private prisons /how much
prison are costing us the taxpayers
 *now there is a push back against this system: List states that legalized
cannabis
Why Prisons are bad from an abolitionist view:
Why are Prisons bad?
Has become an institution for incarcerating people of color and blacks for
menial crimes. (An extension of slavery)
o -Mandatory minimum sentences
 Incarcerated for crimes that are not violent with long sentences like minor
drug charges, prostitution etc.
Often violates human rights consideration
 Solitary confinement
 violence towards inmates
Imprisonment and poverty
 Bail payments
 transportation to and from the prison
 no prospects for employment upon release
 Marginalization, economic exclusion etc.
Public Health consequences of imprisonment
 prisons are overcrowded
 nutrition is poor
 access to fresh air and adequate exercise is often unavailable
 Psychiatric disorders like HIV, infections, TB, STDs, skin disease and injuries
including self-mutilation are not addressed adequately
Detrimental social impacts
 -weakens social cohesion
 - affects internal family relationships
The cost of imprisonment
 -actual funds spent on criminals as well as social, economic and healthcare
related costs which are difficult to measure but are immense and long term.
Prison Industrial Complex
 Private prisons are one of the main reasons for increasing incarceration as
there is a benefit from the incarcerated people to the private industry.

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How is it possible to decarcerate?
 A swift massive system change from within
 Abolition by attribution:
 abolishing paroles,
 releasing prisoners perceived as requiring supervision into community peer
groups, substituting prison time with restitution to victims;
 pushing for release of prisoners convicted for victimless crimes
 abolishing jails for those who cannot pay for bail and preventive detention
 creating community conflict resolution centers
 Abolishing the Prison industrial complex
 establishing community probation programs
 decriminalizing whole categories such as prostitution, sex related crimes,
marijuana, public intoxication
 Adopting a restorative justice programs
 defense of immigrant rights
What are the alternatives to prison?
 Schools are seen as the most powerful alternative to jails and prisons
 Demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels.
 structures of current violence needs to be eliminated from schools of color
and impoverished communities
People with mental health issues need to be put into mental institutions
instead of prisons which are currently the trend.
 A health system that provides free physical and mental care to all.
Alternatives need to address homophobia, racism, male dominance, class bias
and other structures of domination
A Justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than
retribution and vengeance.
Decriminalization of drug use is a significant component.
 -development of a constellation of free, community-based programs
accessible to all people who wish to tackle all problems. Throwing them in
jails is not a solution.
Job and living wage programs:
 alternatives to the disestablished welfare programs, community-based
recreation
Reforms that do not have an abolitionist lens: (***Courtesy of Aaron Appeal)
 Shifting prisoners from county jails to state prisons:
 Police cameras and more police training:
 Legal retribution to police brutality

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 Increased hate crime legislation
 Rehabilitation linked to incarceration as a last resort
 Shifting from death by lethal injection, electric chair, firing squad (Utah), etc.
to death by incarceration
 House arrest and technological monitoring
 Gun control measures relating to tougher sanctions
 Prison expansion to deal with overcrowding
o If you build more prisons, you’ll fill them
 Probation expansion
o Keeps people under the surveillance of the criminal justice system
 Trans prisons
o If you build more prisons, you’ll fill them
o “Transforming Carceral Logics: 10 Reasons to Dismantle the Prison
Industrial Complex Through Queer/Trans Analysis and Action”
 Opening new prison hospitals or separate clinical wards
Reflection
After our presentation, we also did an activity in the form of a debate where
we divided the class into prison reforms from an abolitionist view and non-
abolitionist view. The reason we did this activity was because while we were
researching, we had a lot of debate in between the group which made us realize that
if three people do not agree on all aspects, then highly likely this will spark
controversial and thought provoking conversation in the class. We decided to
provide each group with handouts that had certain ideas from our presentation to
provide them with some background for the debate and it was a great success! The
conversations we had were particularly interesting. The students with the abolition
view seemed to have more convincing arguments compared to the other group
which was interesting as most people would not be very convinced with the
abolition view. Through this presentation and the activity I learned a lot about
prison reforms that I had no idea of before. After the class readings and discussions,
I was convinced that prison reforms were important, but did not know which
reforms were good and which would increase mass incarceration. Although the
reforms from an abolitionist view had some practical alternatives to prisons, I was
convinced that those could work only for those who were incarcerated for minor
crimes like drugs, prostitution. I still, doubt the practicality of the alternatives for
heinous crimes like murder, armed robbery and sexual assault. I personally could
not agree with the restorative justice model for these vicious offenses. Therefore, I
can say that this presentation did educate me and change my perception to an

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extent but it also made me realize that radical thought of any type will not bring in a
good transformation. Steps towards reform needed to be taken slowly and carefully.
Conclusion
The Inside-Out class made me realize things I would have never realized
otherwise. I always heard and read about prison but seeing it and experiencing the
real-life stories from the people themselves is a different experience that is beyond
any reading. Whenever, I discussed about this class with my parents, they always
questioned my intention as to why I was exploring a group of people who already
have no future and chosen the path of crime. It is very difficult to explain to them
that they are no different from us and that they have families and aspirations just
like us but due to this ongoing process of mass incarceration, they have been
victimized and categorized repeatedly. Every time as I read the readings, I had a
certain idea in mind, but as we discussed the topics, the first-hand experience of the
inside students is what made this a learning process. Having no background in
criminal justice or mass incarceration, taking this course was not an easy decision
for me. But all I can think of now is how fortunate I was to get this opportunity to
learn about such an important issue from the people in the system who are affected
by it daily. This class also helped me find my focus for graduate studies through
which I aim in making a difference to this system. I cannot change the system
completely, but I can try and help those who are unfairly incarcerated which will
bring in some kind of transformation. As Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of
civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”, it is time for the United
States to start dealing with those who are incarcerated and are locked up in the
prisons in a respectable manner so as to portray the standard that Americans, as a
society, hold out to themselves.

Inside Out final paper

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