J
JPC, Sr.
Guest
Reports say that there are over 2 million persons (male and female) are imprisoned in the USA, and some 32,000 in the State of Maryland system, and a daily average of 308 inmates in the St. Mary's County Detention Center (SMCDC), and our SMCDC is only designed to hold 245 inmates so our's is abusively over full.
The condition of prisoners is mostly kept unknown to the outside free citizens except when some event happens like a famous person gets incarcerated or an inmate death or a riot at a facility or an inmate hunger strike or other such big event, but for the rest of the time the happenings and conditions of jails and prisons are kept rather secret behind the walls.
Important to remember is that our founding fathers purposely wrote into the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, that the law can not impose any cruel or unusual punishment.
Very many inmates of jails and prisons have big debilitating mental illnesses and those prisoners need treatment and some need medications and or therapy and the punishment of only confinement is not the right solution. Many mental illnesses come from childhood abuses called punishments.
The ideal is that citizens are sent to jail as punishment and not sent to jail and then be punished again in the jails.
Overcrowding is one of the biggest and most common abuse of prisoners (in the USA) and it is particularly abusive to those with mental illnesses and to those housed in the same cell with the mentally ill. The requirement is that each individual person needs at least 55 square feet of living space, thus based on that number the jail / prison cells are made to the size of 55 square feet. That is 5.5 feet X 10 feet, or 6 X 9, which is a standard size jail cell. But then to make the prisoners permanently uncomfortable the gov put into the small cell a set of bunk beds with one bed over top of the lower bed so then it houses 2 inmates in a one person room. Subsequently as a result of this double bunking there are many more fights and suicides and homocides and pervertions and diseases and more.
Right now in our SMCDC it is designed for 245 inmates (based on the double bunking) and it is averaging 308 daily and it swells higher with as many as 380 on some days - particularly weekends. See link below,
SMC Sheriff 2005 Annual report, scroll half way down page to Corrections Division, last sentence.
Exposing the wrong is the first step in any reform.
The condition of prisoners is mostly kept unknown to the outside free citizens except when some event happens like a famous person gets incarcerated or an inmate death or a riot at a facility or an inmate hunger strike or other such big event, but for the rest of the time the happenings and conditions of jails and prisons are kept rather secret behind the walls.
Important to remember is that our founding fathers purposely wrote into the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, that the law can not impose any cruel or unusual punishment.
Very many inmates of jails and prisons have big debilitating mental illnesses and those prisoners need treatment and some need medications and or therapy and the punishment of only confinement is not the right solution. Many mental illnesses come from childhood abuses called punishments.
The ideal is that citizens are sent to jail as punishment and not sent to jail and then be punished again in the jails.
Overcrowding is one of the biggest and most common abuse of prisoners (in the USA) and it is particularly abusive to those with mental illnesses and to those housed in the same cell with the mentally ill. The requirement is that each individual person needs at least 55 square feet of living space, thus based on that number the jail / prison cells are made to the size of 55 square feet. That is 5.5 feet X 10 feet, or 6 X 9, which is a standard size jail cell. But then to make the prisoners permanently uncomfortable the gov put into the small cell a set of bunk beds with one bed over top of the lower bed so then it houses 2 inmates in a one person room. Subsequently as a result of this double bunking there are many more fights and suicides and homocides and pervertions and diseases and more.
Right now in our SMCDC it is designed for 245 inmates (based on the double bunking) and it is averaging 308 daily and it swells higher with as many as 380 on some days - particularly weekends. See link below,
SMC Sheriff 2005 Annual report, scroll half way down page to Corrections Division, last sentence.
Exposing the wrong is the first step in any reform.