Punishment: Prisons

Description

Compare prison conditions. For that purpose, read the following on the conditions in American prisons:   ·       Rape: US: Human Rights Watch, “Federal Statistics Show Widespread Prison Rape” (15 December 2007), https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-show-widespread-prison-rape and Alisia Santo, “Prison Rape Allegations Are on the Rise: But the accusations are still rarely found to be true” The Marshall Project (25 July 2018), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/07/25/prison-rape-allegations-are-on-the-rise   ·       Race: The Sentencing Project, “Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System”(August 2013), http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_ICCPR%20Race%20and%20Justice%20Shadow%20Report.pdf   ·       Women: ACLU, “Women are the Fastest Growing Segment of the Incarcerated Population,” https://www.aclu.org/other/facts-about-over-incarceration-women-united-states  ·       Private Prisons: MariameKaba, “Fifteen Things That We Relearned About the Prison Industrial Complex in 2013” and Prison Culture (Friday, 20 December 2013), http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/20759-fifteen-things-that-we-re-learned-about-the-prison-industrial-complex-in-2013 ·       View the following videos: o   Prison in Finland, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2pdwaAkVA4 o   Prison in Norway v. USA, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHdGr4aQoU&feature=related o   Prison in Norway, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyiodSMNv4E&feature=fvwrel o   Prison in Russia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jt1xqkctYM; the following is more than an hour, but you can watch sections of it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gABn207rdo; if the YouTube does not work, just watch an alternative video from YouTube on Russian prisons.    1. Is rape in US prisons a problem? Why/why not? (.50)   2. Based on the data presented in the assigned readings, is the US prison system discriminatory based on sex and race? Why/why not? (.50)   3. Should we continue to fund private prisons? Why/why not? (.50)   4. Compare prison conditions in the USA, Norway, Finland and Russia. Describe briefly the main characteristics of each prison system and then choose the one that you find the most appropriate (1 point)