Can prison make people live better Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Can prison make people live better - Essay Example The prison system exposes convicts to more violence, hence making them more and more capable to commit more serious crimes once released or even in the prison itself. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has performed a study on nonviolent offenders and proves that nonviolent offenders are most likely to become more violent. Based on the statistics of the research, 95% of the nonviolent offenders have a prior arrest and about a third of them have become violent while in prison and even while they are released they show streaks of violence. This is what was seen in the prison at which Barcenas is being held at in Spain. Luis Barcenas has been in jail since mid last year while under investigation for multi-million euro tax fraud and has turned aggressive as the possibility of serving a long term started looking live (Dunham 8). On January 8, a driver was to take him to hospital for general checkups as he and fellow inmates had asked for. He shouted that he was not a criminal as he refused to be handcuffed to the back as mandated by law. After refusing to get in, he began banging and shouting complaints to the police officers. This simple misconduct eventually cost him 140 days without any courtyard time (Dunham 11). As seen from the case of Barcenas, it is quite evident that the mounting pressure of spending more years in prison caused a rather nonviolent man to crack and become aggressive. This may not be the case for other individuals, but the same would be experienced. With also the exposure to other harder criminals, they may pick up the need for aggression in order to survive. Not until they are released, are they able to go back to their normal selves. Because of being branded as convicts and criminals, the society discriminates against them. Branded as such, the ex-convicts face difficulties in the adjustment into the