Reply #32: No they are not better off inside. [View All]

[Obamanaut]

I too, have worked in a Department of Corrections. Seven years as a guard, two years in the education department.

I know several former staff members, (adults, not juveniles) who ran afoul of the law and are now incarcerated. They had families, homes, pets, freedom to wander about randomly. They then transgressed the laws of society, and are now incarcerated, and by virtue of whatever decision they made, they are now on the inside rather than outside. By no stretch of the imagination can one say that they have it better now than they did on the outside. These former staff members are not the only prisoners who left a better life behind. It is true that many, if not most, brought this upon themselves by their actions. It is blatantly UNTRUE that they are better off.

I knew a young man who was a Special Education student (age, under 21) at the prison where I worked in the education department. He died as a result of violence - while on the “inside“. How can it be said that he was better off “inside” than on the outside?

Another young inmate (also under 21) suffered a severe beating in the same dorm that housed the young man in my second paragraph. I knew him also, and even read a letter that he dictated to a nurse - dictated because his beating rendered him unable to write for himself. He was not disfigured or disabled on the outside, no, it was on the inside. How can it be suggested that he too is better off on the inside?


edited for spelling