LOGICAL PRISON POLICIES
Let's face it, I am quite used to U.S. prisons reacting in strange ways to specific problems, but I am probably not used to it enough! When I read that a prisoner serving a five-year sentence in Florence, Arizona, was found hanged in his cell, I was not too astonished--sad but not surprised. Life in prison is not like living in the Holiday Inn, and some people don't have the strength to endure what they are going through in prison.
For Abraham Navarro, 24, to wait one more year in this hell (he had been sentenced to 5 years in September 1994) was probably too long. Or maybe what he had to endure in his cell or inside the prison was too unbearable, so Abraham Navarro hanged himself with his shoelace.
He is not the first. On May 13, a juvenile hanged himself with bedsheets and shoelaces at the state prison in Tucson. And just two weeks before, in the Eyman Prison Complex, a prisoner hanged himself with his shoelace too.
Abraham Navarro will not be the last to commit suicide while in prison, but I bet he never imagined that he would be the cause of another major reform in prison rules! Let's just suppose you are working in a prison, and a prisoner, after others have done the same thing, kills himself. What will you do? Try to find a solution to prevent prisoners from feeling so depressed that they sentence themselves to death? Change the system, make it more human, give prisons back their real purpose--to prepare prisoners for the trip back to the so-called free world? Decide that prisons should be for rehabilitation not for torture? Decide that there is something wrong with prison conditions or recommend asking a specialist what you can do to prevent such a horrible event? That sounds logical, doesn't it?
What do you think was the first decision of Florence prison authorities? "Prevention," of course! A real effective one. Since prisoners are hanging themselves with shoelaces, let's react in the only realistic way--confiscate prisoners' shoelaces!
And what do tennis shoes look like when they have no shoelaces? "Castrated." So let's not allow prisoners to look like youngsters walking down the street without laces. Let's confiscate prisoners' tennis shoes as well, probably prevent them from trying to kill themselves by swallowing them!
And by the way, their life is too cool without tennis shoes, so the May 18, 1998, amendment ordered that hobby crafts are no longer permitted at the Special Management Unit.
And on June 1st--doubtless to prevent prisoners from burning themselves with hot cooked meals--the sack lunch program was expanded from 5 days a week to 7 days a week. And since prisoners sometimes hang themselves with bedsheets, let's take the bedsheets off. And since prisoners have also been known to eat forks and knives to try to kill themselves, let's take eating utensils away too--they can eat with their fingers! Trousers and shirts can also be used as rope, so let's keep prisoners in briefs. But briefs can be used to strangle each other, so let's forbid them also.
That's it! Naked prisoners in naked cells! What--psychological problems? Don't worry, they won't last because the prisoners will soon be dehumanized.
It is a good and sane idea to save prisoners' lives, isn't that obvious? So it's only logical to get rid of the death penalty!