In college I took a class on criminal justice and in that class read a book called Inside: Life Behind Bars In America by Michael Santos. It was an incredible first hand experience from a well educated individual who spent several decades in some of the "worst" prisons in the US due to poor decisions he made in his 20's. The ideas in the book made me take an in-depth look at the American prison system, something I may have otherwise never gave a second thought to, and became a large part of the reason I went to intern with the Public Defender’s Office. While working with the Public Defender, I went into the local jail and interviewed inmates and correctional officers to get first hand knowledge about the people in jail and the circumstances in their life that led to their incarceration. I learned that over 80% of the inmates at the local jail were on some form of prescribed psychotropic medication and an estimated 95% of the inmates had suffered some form of traumatic childhood abuse. I used my position in court to advocate for better mental health treatment for my clients and I had the chance to help create a new Mental Health Docket for the local jail and surrounding counties in order to promote reforms on incarceration and rehabilitation practices. If I had never read that book, I would have continued to think that everyone in jail is a bad person who willfully does bad things and I probably never would have given it a second thought. Now my opinions on incarcerated individuals is much more complicated and I care very much how we as a society chooses to deal with the roughly 5% of the population (primarily the poor, under-educated, mentally ill, and minorities) who will become incarcerated at some point in their lives.
If you are interested in learning more, check out these cool info-graphs from the Sentencing Project!
And keep an eye out for my interview with Martin Kumar, the Superintendent of the Regional Jail!
*This article was originally part of a submission to the Motley Fool
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