The Failure of Rehabilitation in Prisons
The prison system is rife with issues regarding the rehabilitation of prisoners. These issues are being discussed at great length in the modern day, but how does that compare to their discussion in literature? Two novels in particular that portray a representation of prisons failing to help the prisoners inside their walls are Miles Morales Spiderman and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The prison systems described in both books follow a similar path, which leads prisoners toward returning to prison after being released. This is indicative of a failure when it comes to rehabilitation.
In Miles Morales Spiderman, the warden in charge of the prison turned out to be a man who has been alive since before the civil war. The warden believes that the master and slave relationship is important to society and is trying to bring that back in a twisted way. He accomplishes this by using a bunch of zombified school staff to target students of minority, pushing them to fail and drop out of school. This in turn forces them into poverty, and ultimately a life of crime. This is shown throughout the story with the random arrest of people in Miles’ neighborhood. This is also shown when Miles and Ganke were about to go to the school’s Halloween party. They discussed Mr. Chamberlin with Miles’ dad and some of his friends. All of the older gentlemen in the room stated that they all had a teacher, principle, or administrator by the name of Mr. Chamberlin that led to them getting expelled from school for one reason or another. At the Halloween party Miles caught Mr. Chamberlin sneaking away early, while dressed as a Confederate soldier. Miles followed him and learned of the warden and his plans to try and revert the world back to the white supremacist way of thinking.
Jason Reynold’s only brings us into the prison once in the book, when Miles and his father goes to visit Austin, Miles long lost cousin. The first thing that Miles’ father comments on is the fact there is no one else there for visitation. Once they are all checked in Miles is looking over the rules for visitation which indicate that Saturdays and Sundays are the only day they allow visitors into the prison. “Saturdays: Last names starting with A-L. Sundays: Last names starting with letters M-Z” (Pg. 187). Already Reynolds is showing a strict environment that prevents the prisoners to see outside family members very often. The first image of Austin shows how much the prison has worn him out, “The skin on his face sagged with exhaustion, making him look older than he was.” (Pg. 189) Immediately when they approach Austin, Miles’ father extends his hand to shake and is instantly yelled at due to yet another rule of the prison, no physical contact. As Austin describes how he ended up in prison, once again it shows how unjustly he was treated due to his father’s crimes and his race. “I cut back on school-wasn’t doing so great anyway, and teachers never seemed to bother to ask why-and figured stealing cars as a minor would be a slap on the wrist if I got caught. But when I did, they trumped my charges when they found out who my father was. So now I’m in here.” (Pg. 193). Austin states that the reason why he went to a life of crime was to try and help his mother who was dying from cancer after his father passed away. Toward the end of their visit, Austin says “I mean, look, everybody locked up in here comes from similar situations as mine. Either forced to act a certain way to survive, or totally forgotten about. And they all look like me-like us-too” (Pg. 194). This line is important in showing the agenda that the warden is pursuing. Reynolds introduced a prison system where there is no escape, and no form of rehabilitation for the inmates.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the wizarding prison is introduced with many details showing the horror it embodies. The first mention of Azkaban tells readers that it is simply a high security prison where they send the wizarding world’s criminals. It is not until later when Harry is conversing with Professor Lupin when the reader gets a real glimpse into Azkaban’s horrors. Lupin states “The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought.” (Pg. 188). Although the prison itself is not talked about as much, the novel has a very deep description of the Azkaban guards, the dementors. Since Sirius Black escaped Azkaban and is on the run, the dementors are posted at Hogwarts in an effort to protect Harry. The dementors are introduced as evil creatures with no regard for mercy and this is shown many times throughout the story. At the start-of-term feast, Dumbledore warns the students “It is not the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses.” (Pg. 92). It is mentioned multiple times that Dumbledore is furious that the dementors are stationed outside of the school. He understands that their nature could potentially cause harm to one of his students. Lupin brings forward the best description of the dementor by saying “They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them.” (Pg. 187). Harry finds himself questioning why the dementors make him faint when all the rest of the students merely feel dread. Lupin explains to him that it is not a point of weakness, “Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” (Pg. 187). A prison in the middle of the ocean, filled with guards who suck the happiness out of their prisoners and do not care whether the person is innocent or guilty is where every criminal is sent from the wizarding world.
The main focus in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is Sirius Black, the first man ever known to escape the dreadful place. Sirius was placed in prison after being caught at the scene of a murder. “A crater in the middle of the street, so deep it had cracked the sewer below. Bodies everywhere. Muggles screaming. And Black standing there laughing, with what was left of Pettigrew in front of him.” (Pg. 208). As the reader learns later Sirius did not commit the murder, Pettigrew made a scene in front of all those people then proceeded to cut his own finger off before transforming into a rat and disappearing. As all these revelations are coming forward, the question comes up of how Sirius was able to escape Azkaban. Sirius indicates that he thought he did not lose his mind because he knew all along that he was innocent. Once Sirius saw a picture of the Weasley family in Egypt with Scabbers (Pettigrew) he had a new found hope, “It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the dementors couldn’t destroy it…It wasn’t a happy feeling…it was an obsession” (Pg. 372). With that bit of hope Sirius was able to transform into a dog and escape the prison with one goal in mind: to murder Peter Pettigrew for his betrayal. Later in the book Sirius attempts to exact his revenge on Pettigrew. If Harry had not intervened, Sirius would have killed Pettigrew and become the murderer that everyone thought he was. Similarly, to Miles Morales Spiderman, this shows a failure in the prison system. The lack of attempts to rehabilitate the prisoners disallows them from living a normal life when they are able to get out. It took Harry being there and telling Pettigrew “I don’t reckon my dad would’ve wanted them to become killers.” (Pg. 376).
The department of corrections in Mile Morales, and the Azkaban prison in Harry Potter mirror our current prison system in that their focus is on punishment and not rehabilitation of inmates. In Miles Morales Spiderman, the warden is using the prison system to target people of color specifically to stop them from being successful in their lives. When Miles visits Austin, Austin tells him that he has been having nightmares that got worse when he was brought to prison. Due to the nightmares, Austin is having trouble trusting those around him, and in turn they are creating a horrifying experience in the prison that there is no recovering from. We come to find later in the story that the nightmares are the work of the Warden. The Warden is deliberately creating an environment where the prisoners’ condition can only worsen. Reynolds uses this as a great image of how the focus on punishment over helping the inmates makes it impossible for them to lead a normal life when they get out.
Azkaban prison in Harry Potter was created to be a literal hell for the its inmates. The guards are not even human, but dark creatures that the Ministry of Magic has control over. Even the happiest of people who enter Azkaban find themselves wishing for the release of death, which is discovered when Hagrid is recounting his time in the prison. There is no chance for rehabilitation in a prison where the guards have no care whether you are innocent or guilty, they just want to feed off your emotions.
Upon closer analysis of both novels, the prison system featured in Miles Morales and Harry Potter are very similar. The Warden of Miles Morales Spiderman is a perfect representation of a dementor, due to his evil soullessness. While the Warden is using his control over dreams to effect the inmates, the dementors are using their dark abilities to drain the happiness around them. Like the Warden, the dementors do not care whether an inmate is innocent or guilty; they only care about torture.
These two fictional prison systems mirror how the prison system is handled in America. In Rehabilitation Lost by Evelyn Mattern, a previous inmate says of the North Carolina prison system that “horror tales can be told about its prison conditions.” (Pg. 33). The author of the article interviewed Reverend Ben Chavis, who was a black civil rights leader who has spent time in the North Carolina prison system. He spoke of various cruelties that the inmates endured. According to Chavis he “claimed to have seen men who were never out of their cells hosed down with a 200-lb. pressure hose, their food shoved into their cells across a dirt floor.” (Pg. 33). He also speaks about prisoners “receiving shock treatment or drugs, had known prisoners who cut themselves with razors in order to get out from under the drugs.” (Pg. 33). Chavis states that once you are considered a convict, you are treated more as an animal than a human. When Mattern interviewed the wardens of the prison they denied all of Chavis’ claims, stating that they never did any of the things mentioned to the inmates and the only medications they were given were necessities. The wardens followed up saying that, that kind of brutality only existed among the prisoners and was not caused by the staff. In the warden’s eyes “You are dealing with people who will not conform to society…who would just as soon kill you as look at you.” (Pg. 33). Mattern asked about the conditions specifically at the Central Prison in Raleigh. One warden stated “I felt like I was in a cage with animals. I felt like they were more animals than humans.” (Pg. 33). These quotes from actual prison wardens show a lack of accountability, and a total lack of humanity in our prison system. There is no rehabilitation in prisons in North Carolina, only experimentation and torture of inmates.
It is not only the prison systems in America that are in desperate need for reform. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron recognized that there needed to be changes within their prison system, as well as ideas for what should be done. For the focus of this essay, I will just be looking at what he said are the problems in the rehabilitation system. The first thing that stuck out to me with David Cameron’s speech is the way he described prisons: “these buildings are closed off by high walls and barbed wire-to adopt an out of sight, out of mind attitude.” (Pg. 118). It is impossible to know what truly goes on inside the prison walls without having experienced it yourself. Cameron used statistics to show just how much the system is failing, “46% of all prisoners will re-offend within a year of release. 60% of short-sentenced prisoners will reoffend within the same period.” (Pg. 118). Another thing that Cameron is appalled by is the amount of harm that occurs in a prison, “In a typical week, there will be almost 600 incidents of self-harm; at least one suicide; and 350 assaults, including 90 on staff.” (Pg. 118). Seeing the statistics puts a new perspective on how badly the prison system is failing inmates, especially those who may have committed minor offenses. Cameron also brings up the point that most people think that prisons are a holiday camp; inmates get three meals a day, a roof over their heads and some prisons even offer opportunities for education. As Cameron puts it, “Prisons aren’t a holiday camp-not really. They are often miserable, painful environments. Isolation. Mental anguish. Idleness. Bullying. Self-harm. Violence. Suicide.” (Pg. 119). How is a person supposed to recover from that and be expected to rejoin the world as if they never left?
In the article Is There a Role for Rehabilitation in Sentencing? by Jon M. Sands, the author discusses the benefits to instituting rehabilitation during the original sentencing of a crime. Were this to be implemented, the system would be better able to assist convicts of lesser crimes with stepping back into normal life. The author emphasizes the cost factors along with this type of sentencing, “It is cheaper to rehabilitate than to incarcerate, and both society and the individual can benefit.” (Pg. 112). This article in particular focuses on the treatment of drug addiction and mental health treatment and how providing treatment instead of imprisonment allows for a better understanding of the individual and their needs. The decision of course is still up to the court system, “If a court is persuaded that rehabilitation is possible, and it falls within whatever parameter set by the guidelines, the court should be allowed to exercise its discretion or to make an adjustment.” (Pg. 113). Sands believes that “Formally allowing and incorporating rehabilitation within the context of the guideline system promotes equality of treatment.” (Pg. 113). Moving forward, Sands brings up the topic of inmates who are released under a supervised release and the pitfalls associated with that. In theory, a supervised release should be beneficial to the inmate because they have someone with them who knows what they have done and should know how to help them. In Sands’ words “But if supervised release is treated as an additional sentence waiting to happen, any relapse or misstep would lead to further punishment rather than become a focus of treatment and rehabilitation.” (Pg. 114). A supervised release is treated more for community safety than an actual opportunity to help the inmate adjust back into normal life. I agree with Sands in the fact that the court systems need to take rehabilitation into account when sentencing a criminal.
In conclusion, there are points in literature that reflect the hidden truth about our prison systems and the rehabilitation process that follows. Harry Potter focuses on a man who escaped prison to commit the crime of which he was originally convicted. Miles Morales Spiderman uses the prison as a sort of population control to remove people of color from the streets. The problem with our prisons do not just stop at the United States of America, but is shown universally. We desperately need prison reform to better assist those who are slowly being damaged by the time spent there.