By: Laura Montesanti ; Staff Writer
Salve Regina’s Pell Center for International Relations hosted a luncheon on Tuesday in order to raise awareness on issues pertaining to the American Prison System. As part of their “Round Table” discussion series, both Students and Faculty alike were encouraged to give their own perspective on what Justice and Punishment meant to them as Citizens of the US.
On Febuary 11th, in Miley’s private dining room, such questions and many others were raised as Pell Member Carolyn Deady led the group, as the conversation unfolded over sandwiches and chips. Out of the 15 audience members who attended, the student turnout was remarkably eclectic ranging from Freshman to Senior of all majors. The faculty was just as diverse spanning from a few Pell Members to various Professors.
Once the lunch portion was concluded, Deady began the affair rather democratically by asking the audience what they knew about Prison and Parole rates in our country. In passing around a sheet of statistics, as it turned out, the students replied with an understanding that it was indeed not what they originally envisioned: 1 out of every 100 Americans were in prison, about 14% of which were being federally detained. As for the American taxpayer it took $21,000 each year for the upkeep of minimum security inmates compared to over $33,000 each year for Max-Security inmates.
Questions of crime rates and geography came into play, as the group argued on the legitimacy of retracting voting rights for its incarcerated citizens. As the discussion furthered, so did its global perspective gradually bringing to light how other international governments reform vs. punish their inmates. In Sweden for example, a man convicted of murdering four people back in 1994 is to be released in 2016 instead of our expected American sentence of life in prison.
Above all no matter which question was raised, it could be traced back to various deep rooted Bureaucratic conflicts, “we want one pill that is going to cure all evils” explained Carolyn Deady. However for many lawyers and corporations who make profit off of the Prison System, the group all seemed to agree that it would take more than simply locking up troubled members of society and throwing away the key.
Furthermore, as coined by one Student participant there seemed to be a “great Pendulum swing” involving how the Mentally Ill were treated in our corrective system, where many of which end up astray caught in federal prison due to lack of rehabilitation and care in the first place.
When the meeting adjured, Senior Mia Lupo, who works with the Pell Center explained that such round table discussions as these were important especially to those fellow students who had no knowledge of such issues. Being a journalist herself, when asked about how the Media portrays the Prison System, she stated that there was no difference to any other voyeuristic drama show.
“Media has the potential to shape a more accurate picture, but instead its more…fictionalized so people’s perceptions of what’s really out there is skewed” says Mia Lupo.
Even history professor Dr.Neary agreed that the public wasn’t as educated in such a grounded reality, “emotion like fear is so easy to prey on…and then the next day everyone is worried about ‘Is that going to happen to me?’” says Dr.Neary. Despite statistics he later goes on to say, stating that crime is on the decline in America, there is still what he calls a “Dateline Phenomena” pertaining to Prisons.
