Are Prisons Still Relevant?

In Angela Y. Davis' "Are Prisons Obsolete?" , she presents a glipmse into the realities of what has become of Americas state of imprisonment. In it she describes how the prisions system is something that we as Americans take for granted, that prison is something just needs to be. Yet Angela Davis proclaims that perhaps prisons in this day and could be obsolete as the the title implies .

While reading this I found myself too questioning the helpfulness of jails. I used to think prisons where a place of reform and where inmates cold beter themselves. Slowly over time I grew to realize this wasn't the case. Reading Davis writings further cemented the ideas that i had about the United State' prison system. From what she says it seems that imprisonment in the long run does not seem to help anthing as it just makes for a cycle of people that keep getting arrested. She goes into an argument that prison is now a revenue stream process where they make more moeny if there are more prisoners which in turn makes incetive to have as many prisoners as possible. This leads to a dishonest approach to justice as perhaps due to these incentives more people are being put to jail. It seems as if the whole structure of prisons is bult upon getting as many americans in there as possible if one were to look at the statistics.

Davis also brings up an interesting point that prisons in essence are racist structures , meant to imprison as many minorities as possible. This can be seen in how there are many laws which make it easy for one to get trapped in prison. She compares the parallels of slavery and imprisonment in America to the point where its hard to differentiate the two. Prisons it seems are a easy way to keep minorities from participating in mainstream society. It seems that since its easier to put minorities away in jail than it is to  help them get out of the socio economic environments which lead to their arrests , our society allows for the former to happen.  People often dont think of it that way but after reading about it in this article it is hard not to look at it from that angle now.

Davis presents a picture of America that is falling to the prison system and urges us to stop taking prison as just another aspect of life. There many things that need to be changed in order for people not to get trapped in prisons such as changing arbitrary laws that land people there for long periods of time. Though at the heart of the matter is that we as people shouldnt let this go on. We should reject the system that prisons have placed upon our country and find a better solution to crimes. Although until the majority of people  start paying attention to whats going on in our country's prison system , it seems that  America is on a path towards increasing incarceration.

-Christian Morales