While minimum security prisons are typically safer than higher security prisons, the mental anguish can be overbearing.
Minimum security prisons are essentially warehousing for inmates there are very few positive activities available for the general population and beyond the basic steel bunk bed and locker, no furnishings. Inmates are housed in what is essentially bare concrete bunkers with no walls. Above, duct work runs between cobweb covered conduit and the occasional dirt encrusted skylight. There is no softness, no easing of harsh lines and cold concrete. Each area is a cluster of clutter, ranging from piles of orange clothes to clear plastic cookware to trash that would have long ago been thrown away anywhere else. The resource scarcity mentality dominates, causing everything to find a home in the piles of clutter nothing that can be reused is thrown away.
On top of the gloomy surroundings, prisoners must also deal with the mental anguish of helplessness and isolation. Almost every aspect of every day is controlled by the department of corrections, from the time one gets up to when they eat to when they are allowed to go out. With the high cost of phone calls, even that is regulated by affordability. Inmates are almost expected to behave like robots, with very little individuality and access to the outside world.
There are few things that inmates are allowed some freedom over. As these things are few and far between, their importance is magnified exponentially.
For instance, inmates are allowed a certain amount of canteen from personal hygiene to food. The stress involved in making sure there is enough money to “draw down” and in making sure to be at the canteen building on the specified day is immense. One cannot simply go to the store, rather, they have to carefully plan out each order so that they have enough that is needed per week and per month. Missing one day not only means that they are out for that week, but the loss of something that was highly anticipated can be a huge blow.
Similar to canteen, everything is magnified a thousand times. Fights break out over a single dollar. The yard being closed for an extra 15 minutes seems like hours, which makes time spent in prison feel like an infinitely endless cycle of crushed hopes. Anticipation and expectation are killers, all under the guise of reformation.
There are very few ways to combat this. The best thing to do is establish routine and find positive recreational activities. Still, when routine is changed and recreation is denied, that can also cause mental anguish. One has to mentally prepare for this as best as one can.
The most devastating scenarios involve those from the outside. Friends and family can inadvertantly trigger a destructive chain reaction that sometimes has no end. Those who are on the outside will never understand fully, but they do have the power to make life better or worse for those on the inside.
At the end of the day, there is no other solution than overhaul of the prison system, one that puts healing and reform as the focus, while at the same time preserving sense of family, community, and self. Sadly, this is one area that will take many people and many years to change, but by then it will already be too late for those on the inside.
