Are Prison Angela Davis Summary

Sofia Garbenis

05/14/2018

PHI 115

Final Essay

Anjela Davis – Are Prisons Obsolete?

The theme of the prisons, the living conditions of prisoners, the justice of punishments, and the sense of deprivation of liberty becomes one of the key topics of public discussion. Angela Davis in her article sets out a contrast between the early ideas of the purpose of the prison (as captured in the ideas of John Howard and Jeremy Bentham) and the prisons of today. John Howard published The State of the Prisons. His writing clearly expressed the idea that a prison should correct criminals in the interests of society. The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham published his letters on a prison model which he called the Panopticon (page 384). In his

Howard's work and Bentham's Panopticon are both centered around the same idea that people are responsible for their actions. By acting immorally and against the laws the person should have civil rights and not being the tool in someone else political and economic manipulations. In general, the concept of the modern prison system was born influenced by the works introduced by Howard and Bentham. Their revolutionary at that time ideas influenced the establishment of the first criminal rehabilitation centers. The main purpose of these centers was to distant the prisoners away from other people as part of their punishment and not simply as a holding state until trial. Angela Davis states that: "What was once regarded as progressive and even revolutionary represents today the marriage of technological superiority and political backwardness". (390) Any social structure can be seen as a logical product of its previous historical formations, and these previous forms bear significant influence on later forms. However, the current prison system has mutated. In addition to being increasingly repressive, its present existence raises the question about the effectiveness and the

The research should take into the account all the requirements of the legal methodological reform. The change in the system requires changes in legislation, retraining of judges and representatives of law enforcement agencies. This is a difficult process that no one wants to launch nowadays. The problem of crime and relapse is a global problem that is recognized by the politicians of many countries but it is getting hushed up. This happens because the crimes lead to loss of income, and with a high level of relapse - to an increase in the cost of the penal system. But no one estimated the volume of losses on any global scale, for example, on the EU scale. This should be done to draw attention to the problem, thereby confirming the need to combat it, but shifting the focus from the fear of the population to crime to financial expenditures. Such a way will openly raise this issue at the international level, convincing politicians that the discussion does not carry any risks for them. In dealing with such a radical project as prison abolition, the society should decide how such a broad and multipurpose attack on this institution can look and what alternatives can be presented instead of imprisonment. Those who deal with the immediate problems of crime and violence in their communities and in their personal lives can try to