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A female inmate raises her hand during a class. Learn more about the U.S. Prison System in this special edition of the viewpoint.

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The Viewpoint

How “Orange is the New Black” changed my life

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o clarify for those that have apparently lived under a rock for the past year, I am no ravishing fashionista making a statement with orange, but rather a Netflix addict hooked on the drama “Orange is the New Black.”

At the beginning, I remember shamefully admitting to my friends, “I mean, if you can get past all the lesbian sex, it’s like, really good.” But even then, the show depicts the lives of all kinds of women as director Jenji Kohan brilliantly weaves together their stories in a fashion that I believe truly resembles a modern day Dickens.

Though many of the romance plots may be strictly fanciful in the show, many of the women’s stories remain hideously true and puts faces and personalities onto the generic and obviously negative term, “prisoner.” All across the nation, there are incarcerated men and women who are being restricted by an outdated system.

“Orange is the New Black” undoubtedly sparked a personal interest of mine in the United States’s prison system, and led me to spend an entire year undergoing research for a literature review on the subject for my culminating presentation necessary for the Commonwealth Governor’s School. With the research completed and interviews loudly heard, I decided to share what I found.

The next few pages are essentially a culmination of the

SPECIAL EDITION 2015 EXTRA Editor in Chief

Megan Clark

Assistant Editor in Chief

Sami Toal

research I have scoured, as well as interviews that shed light on how the United States handles the incarcerated.

As a journalist and researcher, I am committed to the presentation of facts as well as an unbiased approach.

However, with that being said, it is up to the reader, as well as myself, to interpret the data and interviews.

Thus, even though “Orange is the New Black” is mostly fiction, there is some truth to the concepts shown that simply cannot be ignored.

Therefore, next time somebody asks about “Orange is the New Black,” I plan on announcing, “I mean, if you can get past the fact that you’re viewing experience will be eye-opening rather than mindless garbage, it’s like, really good.”

Social Media Editor

Erinn Black

Copy Editor

Josh Guillemette Photography Editor

Cory Haley

Business Manager

Sarah Yakulis Adviser

Trisha Strahl

assistant editor in chief

The Viewpoint is a cross-section of the news and opinions of the student body of Mountain View High School.

It is a forum of expression published by aPrintis. Letters to the editor are welcome and should be submitted to rooms 303 or 307

Staff Writers

“We have a racially based justice system that over punishes, fails to rehabilitate, and doesn’t make us safer.”

-Piper Kerman “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Woman’s Prison” by Piper Kerman

Hailey Bullis, Alex Harrington, Emily Johnson, Dekker Jordan, Paul King, Morgan Ocetnick, Lee Penninger, Austin Venable, Nico Villarreal, Sarah Yakulis Front Cover Erika Schultz/Seattle Times mctcampus.com 2014 Virginia High School League State Championship First Place Award Winner 2013, 2014 Free Lance-Star Best Over All Newspaper 2011 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Medalist 2011, 2010 and 2009 Virginia High School League First Place Award Winner Mountain View High School 2135 Mountain View Rd. Stafford, VA 22556

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A HISTORY OF

The Prison System

Pictures provided by mctcampus.com

16th & 17th Century 1550

Crime was made a public event designed to shame the person and deter others by using the ducking stool, the pillory, whipping, branding, and the stocks. At the time, the sentence for the majority of offenses was death.

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1650

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1900

1950

18th Century

1600

1650

This was the era of the ‘Bloody Code’ as there began a growing opposition to the death penalty.

Imprisonment with hard labor was beginning to be seen as a suitable sanction for petty offenders and transportation of criminals was common.

Jeremy Betham created new prison design, the “panopticon,” still used today.

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1750

The “panopticon” allows for a single watchman to observe all inmates.

19th Century

1550

The 19th century brought about the increased dislike of capital punishment. The first national penitentiary in England was completed at Millbank, London in 1816. In 1842 Pentonville Prison was built using the panopitcon design, which is still used today.

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1850

20th Century

The 20th century brought about continued prison development. In England, the Criminal Justice Act of 1948 abolished penal servitude, hard labor, and flogging. The 1990s have also seen the introduction of private prisons.

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1950

21st Century

2000

This century still faces penitentiary debate and reform. United States prisons are overcrowded and require an increase of funds and space as the amount of inmates increases yearly, according to the Planners for Social Responsibility.

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THE UNITED STATES VS EUROPE

ONLY THE UNITED STATES FACES MASS INCARCERATION. WHY DOESN’T EUROPE? T

he United States of America undoubtedly faces a problem that doesn’t exist among other westernized nations. In fact, many countries in western Europe have seemingly effective incarceration systems that successfully punish, rehabilitate, and reintegrate prisoners back into society. Meanwhile, the United States is the world’s leading jailer.

The United State’s population makes up only 5 percent of the world’s total population, however, the United States houses 25 percent of all prisoners worldwide. Furthermore, one in ten men are likely to have been arrested at least once in their lifetime in the United States.

According to on a study done in February 2013 by the European-American Prison Project, when the United States is compared to the Netherlands and German incarceration system, it is found that proportionally and statistically the U.S. has a much larger difference in the number of prisoners in the system.

Not only does the U.S. have prisoners serving a much longer sentence, but in the Netherlands and Germany 90 percent of the prisoners were serving a less than 2 years sentence. Rehabilitation and resocialization are emphasized in Germany and the Netherlands while the United States focuses on retribution and punishment.

One study done in 1991 by the Department of Justice profiled inmates in the United States, Wales, and England. It was found that a less proportional amount of prisoners were in the U.K. over the U.S. and as a whole, inmates in England and Wales were younger than those in the United States.

Racial or ethnic minorities were overrepresented in the incarcerated populations of both countries. These findings correlate similarly when the United States’s prison practices and sentencing were compared with Germany and the 4 q the viewpoint EXTRA q special edition

Netherlands, indicating that the United States lacks a system that produces less criminals and shorter sentences.

Until the mid-1970s, rehabilitation was a key part of U.S. prison policy with prisoners encouraged to develop occupational skills and to resolve psychological problems common in a correctional institution.

However, rehabilitation has decreased as the “get tough on crime” approach has ruled the countries institutional practices and deemed prisons as a place of punishment. This approach has created growth in the prison population, while having a modest effect on crime.

Thus, the United States has more than 2 million citizens in prisons or jails, and lacks treatment for inmates with serious mental issue. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of people in prison are mentally ill.

Inmates in the United States are also treated differently from inmates in European nations.

Marieke Liem, a practicing forensic psychologist in the Netherlands who came to Boston in 2009, was struck by the way American inmates are “treated as subhuman.”

Prisoners wear jumpsuits and are referred to by number as well as often lose their right to vote, contributing to the belief that if you make one mistake, you will pay for it forever, discouraging prisoners to leave a life of crime.

These practices don’t exist in Europe and likely contribute to the larger amount of inmates and longer sentences seen in the United States.

79 people incarcerated per 100,000 (Germany)

716

people incarcerated per 100,000 (United States)

Recidivism

is the amount of prisoners that return to incarceration after being released. The United States as

well as most European nations have a recidivism rate of about 40 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, some countries, such as Norway and Germany have substantially lower rates of recidivism. Norway has a recidivism rate among the lowest in the world at 20 percent. This particular statistic causes debate as Norwegian prisons often resemble hotel rooms whereas American prisons consist of cells and concrete. Recently, programs have been implemented in Ohio among other states, lowering the recidivism rate by 11% in the last three years. This particular occurrence predicts an upcoming shift from the “tough on crime� approach to an emphasis on rehabilitation, as this method already seems to be the most effective in preventing prisoners from ending up back in prison.

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FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW 200,000 prisoners in 1972

2.3 million prisoners in 2013 The Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer

The increase in the prison population can be attributed to the changes of policy under the Reagan administration, which created mandatory minimum sentences with the “Tough on Crime” approach in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

COST FOR TAXPAYERS IS $80 BILLION EACH YEAR “One Strike and You’re out”: Policy in Public Housing by Sharon Dietrich and Rebecca Vallas

The War on Drugs accounts for the

8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010.

Of those arrests, 88 per-

cent were simply for having marijuana.

Racial injustice clearly exists in the United States of America.

BLACKS ARE 3.73 TIMES MORE LIKELY THAN WHITES

TO BE ARRESTED FOR MARIJUANA

COST PER U.S. PRISONER IS

$31,286 EACH YEAR

U.S. Census Data and Vera Institute of Justice

COST PER U.S. STUDENT IS $11,153 Each Year

U.S. Census Data and Vera Institute of Justice

(despite roughly equal usage)

Report done by the American Civil Liberties Union Report done by the American Civil Liberties Union

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INCARCERATION in the United States

s d n o B . r D w e i v r e t @ In MARY WASHINGTON PROFESSOR

THE VIEWPOINT: What do you think contributes to someone’s likelihood to commit a crime, society or genetics?

DR. ERIC BONDS: I mean, it absolutely is something that’s social.

The whole definition of what is a crime really varies depending on the context.

So what might be called a crime in one context may not be a crime in another.

For example, drug use. In Colorado, Marijuana is legal, but if you step over the border into Nebraska, it’s suddenly illegal. Criminality is social, and it varies so much there really is that social aspect. Now, as for who is more likely to commit crimes, that is very much social. Another important question would be, ‘who is likely to be punished by crimes?’ and ‘whose illegal behavior matters more?’

TV: Are people from certain backgrounds more likely to commit a crime?

EB: I’m sure that we could look and see correlations between poverty and income. In certain contexts, it might be more likely but still it’s something that could happen regardless of social position.

TV: Do you think there’s a reason in particular the U.S. faces mass incarceration?

EB: Absolutely, in terms of crime policy, not in terms of people doing more crimes, but how we decide as a nation to punish those crimes. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s the nation adopted the “get tough on crime” approach, and that sounds great and no politician ever wants to be accused of being soft on crime, but what that meant was passing laws that resulted in increasingly stiff penalties for certain kinds of crimes. It also meant mandatory minimum sentences, which resulted in lifetime sentences for people with three felonies. This meant we had an increase in the number of people that are aging in incarceration. Even if they are safe for the general population, they are aging behind bars. Also, this approach brought about laws that create mandatory minimum sentences across the board. If you do “X” crime it automatically leads to “X” sentence which takes away judge’s ability to use discretion and to think about litigating factors. They don’t have the power to really change things if they think that person should spend less time behind bars.

TV: How effective do you think the “War on Drugs” has been for the United States?

EB: We know from surveys that drug use is prevalent and criminalizing it hasn’t reduced its prevalence. So it’s not an effective policy in terms of actually reduc-

mctcampus.com

The Viewpoint sat down with the Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Mary Washington, Dr. Eric Bonds, to discuss what’s putting so many people behind bars. by Sami Toal ing the usage. I like to keep in mind something in my background and from lots of people’s backgrounds, and that is that lots of people make mistakes when they’re young. To me, it seems unjust and unwise as a society to impact people’s life courses and reduce their opportunities to live a happy life and a meaningful life because of mistakes they make when they’re younger.

TV: Do you think a society can prevent deviant acts?

EB: Deviance is violating expectations and that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes, laws aren’t good and we need deviance out there for a society to rethink their norms. But even for criminal deviances, I don’t think we can prevent them.

However, we can change our social policies and our economic policies that will make it more or less common.

TV: What do you think is the greatest difficulty for a former inmate who’s attempting to adjust back into Society?

EB: Probably the idea of a felon label. One of the real hardships the formerly incarcerated have is finding employment. Finding a job can be really hard as it is, and then if you have a criminal record, it’s even more tough or even impossible.

It doesn’t leave people with many opportunities to get a good job and earn a pay check and be a contributing member to society.

TV: Why do you think race is such a large factor in our criminal justice system?

EB: America has a very real history of racism that comes into play in all kinds of different ways and this is just one of those ways. On one hand, structural inequalities between white Americans, Latino Americans and black Americans plays a large role. White Americans are statistically less likely to be poor. There’s huge differences in poverty rates and those with low incomes are more likely to commit street crimes. Race has been tied into our economy. On top of that, there are different ways that different neighborhoods are policed. Racial segregation is very real and continues to exist in terms of where people live. We can look at maps and see predominately white neighborhoods or predominantly black neighborhoods, and often times, neighborhoods are differentiated by home values too. So some poor black or Latino neighborhoods are likely to be much more heavily policed, so the people are more likely to get caught for drug use even though white people and other races are just as likely to do drugs. There are very similar usage rates between every race, however, certain races are more likely to be caught committing the crime. special edition q the viewpoint EXTRA q

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Roger Mitchell: Kentucky State Penitentiary The Viewpoint talked to Roger Mitchell about what it’s like to work in a maximum security prison. by Sami Toal

THE VIEWPOINT: ROGER MITCHELL:

What is your job title?

My job title is Corrections Unit Administrator Warden. I just visited a prison in Virginia last week and each state runs their own prisons differently. For Kentucky, a unit administrator runs a cell house. I work in the Kentucky State Penitentiary, and our population of inmates is broken up into three different areas. We have general population, we have protective custody and then we have a population called segregation.

The segregation inmates are those who have gotten in trouble once they are in the institution. I am the administrator for the segregation cell house so myself and a couple of other people are the principle staff in charge of everything that happens in the cell house.

TV: What are your responsibilities as the Corrections Unit Administrator Warden?

RM: We are responsible for everything. We look that medical has done pill call, we check the count of inmates, I make sure we are tracking the correct number of inmates, and I oversee how many are due to have classification. Every inmate gets reclassified every year to make sure they are in the right level of institution.

We are the states only maximum-security institution. So if an inmate behaves themselves over a long period of time, their custody score is going to drop to a point where they are able to move to a lesser security institution. Everything is a bit different because I deal with people and different issues pop up. I deal with mail and visits, and when an inmate gets in trouble, I have to deal with that as well.

TV: In recent years, the nation’s incarceration system has received a lot of criticism and attention due to various television shows. What do you think that the media or the general population doesn’t understand about incarceration in the United States?

RM: I am a bit of a realist. I know that the media can have a skewed impression of the military, of the police force, or anything. You know, shows like “Lock Up” display things pretty correctly, but something to keep in mind is that one state will be different than another state. I think one of the things society may not appreciate is that the prison system is a cross-segment of society and unfortunately, it’s a cross-segment of the bottom of society. As we see the moral fiber in our society degrade, that is reflected in our youth, their decisions, and the way they treat other people. This translates to the degree of respect they show here. I don’t know that the media has a skewed view of the institution, but rather lacks an appreciation of just how bad it can be behind those walls.

TV: I understand you teach a Bible study class to inmates, can you tell me about that?

RM: First of all, with segregation you have inmates that are literally in a small cell for 23 hours a day. It’s been determined that over time, long-term segregation has a detrimental impact on an individual’s mental health. Even though they have done things that warrant a lengthy punishment, it does effect their health.

The Bible study began when the Kentucky Department of Corrections

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decided to implement a program that would help inmates work their way out of segregation quicker than normal. The warden picked me to be involved in that program and after working with me for a couple of weeks, he figured out I was a Christian. That’s when he asked if I would start a Bible study class, so I did.

We’ve completed a weekly study for the past 9 months and we’ve worked our way through the gospel of John. The next week we start Ezekiel. I use curriculum that I’ve gained through church and the inmates have been very receptive. It’s my personal belief that spiritual rehabilitation is the only thing that has really worked. Have you ever heard of Angola Prison in Louisiana? To be in Angola, you have to have a life sentence in prison. All those men that go there are never going to leave. Kentucky has a parole board and Louisiana doesn’t. If you go to court in Louisiana and get a life sentence, that’s it, you’re going to do life in prison. Angola is entirely comprised of men serving life sentences. A decade or so ago, they had a warden come in. He was a Christian and realized that there was a better way than what they were doing. They started a program for men to become better fathers for their children, even though they are never going to get out. Literally, this program spirituality transformed what was a very dark and dangerous prison to where Angola is now a place other prisons aspire to be like.

Those inmates go to Bible study, they get jobs within the institution and they behave themselves because they have been transformed. When I first got to the institution four years ago, there were inmates who were fighting and standing naked in their cells smearing feces on the wall. After participating in the Bible study, they’re now sitting down in their right minds, fully clothed, groomed, and discussing scripture.

TV: What programs exist in the penitentiary to benefit the inmates?

RM: We have a few programs here. There’s something called “Moral Recognition Therapy,” which helps inmates think about their choices and the consequences of them. I also teach a class that’s called “Inside-Out Dads,” to help inmates become better fathers. We also have a pre-release program that we put the inmates through. It’s a 6 month program, with one lesson a week for an hour.

Inmates learn everything from learning how to fill out a resume to interviews to filling out a checkbook. We talk about finances and readjusting to your family. It’s a pretty comprehension program, but not all the inmates sign up for it. Like anything else, it’s only going to be as good as what they put into it. If they choose to really embrace the material then they will benefit from it. So many people want to find an excuse for why they fail, “Oh, well the institution didn’t prepare me,” or this and that, but you’re going to have excuse makers everywhere. Does that program reduce recidivism? It probably has a small impact on reducing recidivism. Please understand that the amount of programs that we can put inmates through is all dependent on how much money a state wants to spend for those programs. At the same time, there’s another philosophy of not having those programs in a maximum-security prison but rather using that as an incentive for inmates to behave so they can lower their custody score and go to a low-security institution with more of those programs. Again, we could have more programs but it is going to require instructors and taxpayer dollars to fund it.

“ When I first got to the institution four years ago, there were inmates who were fighting and standing naked in their cells smearing feces on the wall. After participating in the Bible study, they’re now sitting down in their right

”

minds, fully clothed, groomed, and discussing scripture.

TV: Is a maximum-security prison mostly comprised of inmates serving longer sentences?

RM: That’s a realistic impression but it’s actually not correct. We have guys that are serving life sentences but we also have some guys who are only serving a five-year sentence that came into the institution and then committed a lot of inside charges. Therefore, they caused a lot of trouble while they were in prison, which caused them to get shipped to us.

TV: Is there a lot of violence on a day-to-day basis?

RM: We try to control it but inmates have time on their hands. They sit and they think about things to do. There might be a piece of metal somewhere that an inmate wants to use for a weapon and he might spend the next year slowly getting that. So we have weapons all the time, we have fights every week. Maybe once a month we’ll have a stabbing. It’s probably been about 6 weeks since we’ve had a really bad stabbing, where two inmates attacked a third. There’s violence there but we watch it. We read inmate mail, we watch inmates’ behavior, we have officers up in gun towers that look for indicators of trouble, such as inmates grouping together. We aren’t just sitting back waiting for things to happen but are rather active in trying to prevent violence from happening. You have to study gangs, you have to look for codes that might be in inmate mail.

Sometimes they’ll just write very overtly that they’re going to do something.

We have an internal affairs that both investigates officer misconduct as well as tries to stay on top of gang trends and uncover other illegal activities an inmate may be participating in.

TV: How well do you get to know inmates?

RM: It’s my job to get familiar with the inmates. Today I had 150 inmates in our cell house. Before most of them get out, I will know quit a bit about each one of them. I look for changes in behavior, so if an inmate is normally happygo-lucky and then one day is different, I’m going to find out why or have an officer keep a close eye on him. It may be something at home but it may be something that has happened at the institution. You also have inmates that are savvy enough to realize that, so one day an inmate might be happy-go-lucky and then stab somebody because they’re trying to keep us from picking up on that. Again, these are guys with time on their hands.

TV: How do you think that the inmates perceive the penitentiary, as a home or a place of punishment?

RM: Different inmates think different things on all ends of the spectrum.

We have guys who believe they are innocent, that their sentence is incorrect, that they shouldn’t be there. Then there are others that have looked me in the eye and said, “I committed the crime. I am right where I should be. My actions and my choices have landed me here.” So you have older inmates that are immature, and you have older inmates that are mature. I have had that very mature perspective come from inmates in their thirties and older. I don’t see that from inmates in their twenties. Most of those guys are too immature to accept responsibility.

TV: Are there any noticeable trends amongst inmates in regards to their background?

RM: I’ve noticed that inmates who have grown up in a single-parent home

without a father figure are impacted. A lot of these inmates are here because of learned behavior. They sold drugs because their mom or dad sold drugs. We have an incredibly high percentage of inmates that came from a single-parent family and left home early on. The percentage of inmates that came from an intact family is very low.

TV: Are there overrepresentations of a certain race in the penitentiary?

RM: No, Kentucky is predominately white and our population is predominately white. We are probably about three percent Hispanic and our black population is probably around 20 percent. A lot of our inmates do come from lower income families but I have a few guys in here that are doctor’s sons. You have inmates in here who have killed someone because they were drinking behind the wheel of the car. You have others that, in a rage, killed somebody.

There are inmates from a middle class background, but mostly from lower income families.

TV: Why do you think that the United States is the only westernized country that faces mass incarceration?

RM: One is that we don’t carry through with the death penalty. I firmly believe that punishment is a deterrent and that the death penalty is a deterrent.

I think that has a small impact. Another impact is the moral decline that has occurred in our society over the past decade as our country has moved away from scripture.

TV: So you do believe in the death penalty?

RM: Absolutely. You should not remove that tool from the tool box, it is a deterrent.

TV: Do you have any interesting stories?

RM: You know, I spent 26 years in the Marine Corps. I had an idea what prison might be like but I didn’t get a full realization until I got there. I had never dreamt of an inmate taking his feces and smearing it all over his cell or eating it. Which sometimes, deviant inmates do. I have been exposed to the worst behaviors of humanity and it took a bit of getting used to. I don’t really have a specific story, but one of the toughest things I’ve had to do is read an inmate’s profile and find out that they had committed a horrific crime against a child. It’s hard to know that and then listen to an excuse they make for being in prison when I know they’ve committed a crime against a child. That takes a bit of an adjustment.

TV: Is there anything you would like to add?

RM: In regards to incarceration, I think it’s pretty well known that money spent in prevention is better than money spent in rehabilitation. If society wants to keep people out of prison, then we have to start in each community.

America also tends to glamorize immoral behavior and as the moral fiber of our country unravels, I think our prison population is going to go up. Also, it’s important to remember that some people just aren’t going to change. There are some people that will change and benefit from our programs in the institution and there are some guys down there that I’m pretty sure will never come back to prison. Then there are others that get out and haven’t been impacted one bit, and will probably end up back in prison. However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to help everyone. special edition q the viewpoint EXTRA q

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