Sarah Graff is the coolest person ever!

The self proclaimed "coolest person ever" pleaded to have me type this up on my blog. So here you go Sarah your very own fan mail sort of...

The Jail System in the United States

After reading Prison Guards, Inmate Detail Brutality Inside Jail I''m simply disgusted with humanity on how brutality in prison goes unpunished. I was trying to think of an analogy I could use to compare to this new (or at least somewhat new) information, so I will use a dog analogy since people hold dogs above most people: If a dog came up to you and bit you, you would obviously report it and the dog would most likely be put in a building with cages filled with other dogs, that's an obvious solution so no one else is harmed, however would you condone this if you knew the dog would be abused by the other dogs as well as the humans? Now most people will obviously be opposed to this. In The Power of One a large portion of story is spent in the jail where Doc and Geel Piet are held. In the article Jelpi Picou(the man who informed the news about prisons) is like Peekay, noticing all of the crimes being committed, while Geel Piet is a symbol for all of those abused by the guards/prison system. The article also mentioned that the weak are at risk which The Power of One covers in the beginning as Peekay gets bullied by the Judge and his clique. In the socratic seminar Geel Piet was discussed as a type of martyr almost, however I saw him more as a symbol for all those unfairly treated; the voice for the voiceless if you will. Just like Picou is for those treated inhumanely in prison.
There are many movies and TV shows that revolve around the brutality in prisons. The one that came to mind when I was reading the article was Shawshank Redemption. In that movie it is said, "Prsion makes honest men into crooks." This brings up a fairly good point, if you go to jail for a minor crime and deal with abuse, rape, and many other crimes that are considered worse than what you were arrested for, then it begins to desensitize you, thoroughly creating worse criminals than were taken out of society. Prisons must be reformed so that it helps strengthen the morals of those who will eventually finish their sentences. The prison described by Picou should never have been allowed to happen and if it continues to be like this, then no one in jail will ever learn to not commit crimes with the exception of the fear of going back to jail.