Thursday, May 16, 2019

Should Prisoners be Treated as Humans

Some people believe that once a various(prenominal) opens a offense or breaks the law, they no longer get to exercise their homophile race rights. In occurrence, they believe that prison houseers do non merit human rights. The give-and-take of these inmates come into question especially when most facilities and prisons atomic number 18 overcrowded, receiving more morally ill prisoners, and female incarceration is on the rise. The problem with close to of society is they do non want prisoners to be set with any common, human decency. They believe inmates have it great by take healthy and receiving adequate medical care.Being able to work out and learn new trades for the future has some of societys members upset with paying tax monies for these types of amenities. I believe that every human has the right to meals and preventive health care. People should non have to fear for their safety or health be earn they have perpetrate a crime. I do not feel they should re ceive good manipulation punishment should be adequate for the crime committed, but the prisoner should not be in affright of starvation, abusive treatment from other inmates or staff, or fear of medical neglect.Prisoners are in fact human beings and of course punishment was much worse in ancient times. There would be severe physical punishment, and living conditions while incarcerated were much worse than conditions today. Lets explore some of the treatment of prisoners and the and how they are sometimes affected by this treatment. I believe treating prisoners as you would any other person with the most basic human rights. This is an ethical dilemma we as society are faced with. The homo and the incidents that occur in it are very unpredictable.There are plenty of people who never expected or thought they would ever become incarcerated. I, individual(prenominal)ly, was incarcerated from age seventeen to age thirty-three. I have experienced kind of a bit of unethical treatment , as well as been a witness to this treatment. There is no self-defense law here in California. I was attacked by a girl with a gun. We fought over this gun and she was shot once in the neck. During the time of the scuffle, she was wanted for an outstanding warrant for the murder of a pregnant woman. I was convicted for try murder and sentenced to fourteen stratums of incarceration as an eighteen year old.My incarceration was to take place in a California State Prison for Women. Upon my reception to plead prison, I have been victim to and witnessed unethical behavior towards the prisoners. With prison overcrowding and an influx off inmates who are intellectually ill. There are also the drug offenders. The drug offenders impart up a large company of prisoners. There are a variety of ethnicities, backgrounds, and classes of individuals incarcerated. Prison overcrowding contributes to a lot of the unethical treatment of prison inmates. When the prisons are overcrowded, inmates ar e not segregated amongst other inmates of their same security levels or risks.Sometimes these conditions make it indulgent for crimes to be committed within the mental quickness or institution. Many lofty risk inmates will make victims out of the less violent, vulnerable inmates. The prisoners sewer become victims of rape, theft, assault, and sometimes murder. Some prisoners have been kn throw to commit suicide because the conditions in prison are too difficult to deal with. To report any crime committee against you while a prisoner, can lead to retaliation from the prison population terrorizing one with fear.There is what is called righteous intuition. According to Mosser (2010),intuition is described as unexplainable feelings a person may have approximately something being right or wrong. My intuition tells me it is wrong to treat anyone with inhumane behavior. It is not adapt to put an individual in price way moreover because they have made a mistaking to society. Yes, they should definitely pay the price for whatever crime is committed. Mentally ill persons have also contributed to the prison population. Several inmates really just need to be placed somewhere that can provide the mental help needed to help rehabilitate them. With so few doctors and staff for the mentally ill, it seems rehabilitation is just an illusion.With mentally ill patients integrated into a prison population, there are bound to be conflicts, as well as abuse. Abuse occurs among the inmates as I have mentioned earlier. Although, half of Californias mental hospitals were closed by the late 1960s, Governor Reagan, during the late 1970s shut down the mental hospitals alone (Torrey, E. F. , M. D. , Kennard, A. D. , Eslinger, D. , Lamb, R. , M. D. , Pavle, J. , 2010). With overcrowding, and barely enough of a budget to care for the health of the inmates, how can a prisoners mental hygiene be taken care of?Most of these prisoners are forced to be check in solitary confinement. M etzner (2010) states, The adverse performances of solitary confinement are especially significant for persons with upright mental illness, commonly defined as mental disorder (e. g. , schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder) that is usually characterized by psychotic symptoms and/or significant functional impairments (para. 4). Solitary confinement can do more harm than good. Inmates may possibly leave prison in a worse state than when they entered prison.People worry some tax dollars going to prisoners food and shelter, but if a prisoner can be corrected by the department of corrections, that will lower the recidivism rate and less prisoners will return to prison. Earlier, I mentioned drug offenders making up a great deal of the prison population. Some peoples addiction does not stop because they are incarcerated. mannish police officers outnumber female officers by two to one. Male officers make up at least two-thirds of the officers and guards. There are t imes I have witnessed my cellmate receiving drugs forsexual favors for the officer. The officer will come at a time when there are no there are no other people around and request these sexual favors. Some guards would even make a girl have sex with them. They would threaten to change the inmates release date, or cause the inmate to be placed in a go down to be caused physical harm by other inmates. These unethical treatments should not be overlooked. Many women are victims of abuse and domestic violence. They have attempted to leave a situation with an abusive partner, and this leads to the homicide if the partner.Donna Hazley (2010) states, The same legal system that fails or refuses to protect strike women prosecutes them vigorously when they fight back (para. 11). There are also women incarcerated with wants of returning to society as a rehabilitated individual, and return to caring for their families. Not all people that are incarcerated always lose custodial rights of their children. They hope to return to care for these children. These children be a chance, if it is possible to rehabilitate their parents. Not everyone serving a prison sentence is an outcast, monster, or societys reject.These are human people with human feelings, and emotions. Again, I declare no one should be subjected to these treatments because they have committed a crime. No one can real know the remorse a person feels for the things they have done wrong, and therefore, should not impose upon them abuse. In near this vent of the unethical treatment of prisoners, I believe the classical theory of deontology could resolve this issue. Deontology is described as looking at the reason the act was committed instead of the consequences of an act (Mosser, 2010).It is a deontologists position that we treat everyone with respect, and consider each human beings dignity when dealing with them. If it is considered why a woman has committed a violent crime against her spouse, then maybe she can be treated with ethical treatment, instead of what one feels is much deserved abuse because she is a prisoner. According to an article by the Humans Rights Watch, A video tape at a California state facility showed two officers severely beating and kicking two inmates (2004). Deontologists theorize that no one should be trounce and kicked for no reason. It is unethical to treat a person with such excessive force. truth ethics is also an uprise that can be taken to resolve the issue I have presented of unethical behavior of prisoners. Virtue ethics focuses more on the character of the person performing the act (Mosser, 2010). If we paid attention to the individual that performed the crime, we may better understand a way to effectively deal with the person without imposing any abuse upon the individual. Utilitarians ethical approach is basing a decision on the best egress for the greater number (Mosser, 2010). It is likely to be beneficial to society to treat prisoners with com mon human rights, and not subject them to inhumane behavior.If people can rehabilitate, instead of become at risk for mental issues, high recidivism, and absence from the family, society will benefit as a whole. There will not be the need to spend so many tax dollars on prisons because so many prisons will not be needed. Families will be united and given the tools necessary to prosper and benefit, having a positive effect on children being raised with their parents. The problem with the deontologists theory is that a relativist will say that it is not their problem to concern themselves with how prisoners are being treated.Relativism is the values regarded by an individual based on their own ethical standards usually based on their background and culture (Mosser, 2010). One will argue that it is what prisoners deserve because that is just what they believe. It may be acceptable in someones society to mistreat prisoners and the mistreatment not be considered unethical. Emotivism sugg ests that moral claims express an ablaze response or attitude (Mosser, 2010). Mostly, people feel as if prisoners deserve unfair treatment. In fact, people feel as if they dont deserve to be treated as human beings at all.Emotivism can reduce our moral judgment to something so unbiased like an emotional response we may be robbing someone of a fair ethical decision. In my opinion, this can cause harm to the greater number of individuals effected by the decision, thus, presenting a quarrel to the issue of utilitarianism. In this case the moral issue will not be examined because it is being responded to in an emotional way. Virtue ethics, I remind you, focuses on the virtues of the person performing the act. It is not an easy thing to do, try to determine why a person made a certain choice.This person or conclave of individuals could have made this choice for a number of reasons. Sometimes, it is much more apparent why a person or group has done something. Other times, it is not. Ethical egoism can be the challenge to virtue ethics. Ethical egoism argues that our moral decisions should be based on our desires and goals (Mosser, 2010). Our personal goals and desires are what stir up us make many of the decisions we make in our lives. If an outcome does not appeal to our goals and desires, we tend to get word a way to dispute that.Finding a persons virtue may conflict with our personal goals and desires. A person may have been robbed once before, and now has a biased toward anyone that has committed a crime, regardless of their motivation to commit the offense. If the victims personal desire is to see any person who commits theft to rot in prison, they will not consider the virtue ethics of a prisoner, therefore, the unethical treatment of prisoners seeming completely ethical to the ethical egoist. Having served so much time in prison, deontology is the circumferent view to my own.I believe that every action has a consequence and people need to suffer a con sequence when they have broken the law. Respecting this theory, I still believe that everyone should be treated with respect and human decency. Although, I shot the young lady in the struggle over the gun, she was already wanted and convicted of murder. I feared for my animateness, as well as did not intend to cause great bodily injury otherwise, I would have shot her repeatedly. Finances and social class had a lot to do with my conviction. I was inefficient to afford the best attorney and I was what was considered at-risk urban youth.Society did not care about the reason the victim ended up shot once. It was argued by strangers who did not know me that I deserved to serve fourteen years, and maybe even deserved to be shot myself. Either way, I am a respectable human being, who wanted nothing other than to reintegrate into society and make a positive life for myself. People could never understand that unless they have been in prison, or have a family member who has spend time in prison. There are people who deserve to be treated fairly no matter whether they have committed a crime or not.I am sure I can benefit from therapy. It feels as if sometimes, I am suffering from post-traumatic stress. I feel I didnt deserve to receive some of the abuse that I have fallen victim to. Inhumane treatment in prisons should be investigated. Society should take time to weigh all the issues and realize heinous crimes are committed and one absolutely should pay their debt to society, but never at the cost of their basic human rights. both persons deprived of liberty shall be treated at all times with humanity and with respect for the inborn dignity of the human person, (OHCHR, 2005).

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