May is Unlock the Box Mental Health Awareness Month, aimed at advocating against solitary confinement. The Unlock the Box Campaign, active in 22 states, highlights the severe psychological effects of solitary confinement, with Michigan's Open MI Door leading local efforts for reform. While some segregation may be necessary for safety, prolonged isolation causes significant harm and is inconsistent with human rights standards. Reform should focus on limiting segregation duration and promoting humane alternatives to improve inmate conditions and rehabilitative outcomes.
Tag: Crime and Punishment
Locked Down: How Prison Lockdowns Undermine Mental Health and Rehabilitation in U.S. Prisons
In many U.S. prisons, “lockdown” no longer describes a rare emergency response to a riot or a narrowly targeted security incident. It has become a recurring operational mode: housing units sealed, movement halted, yard and dayroom time canceled, phones restricted, visits suspended, and education, treatment, and job assignments paused—sometimes for days, weeks, or even months. Reporting in recent years has documented extended lockdowns tied not only to violence but also to chronic understaffing and overcrowding, raising a stark question: When a prison can’t run its basic schedule safely, are we still operating a rehabilitative institution or merely warehousing human beings behind steel doors?
Why “Ban the Box” Is Not Enough
“Ban the Box” laws were created to stop employers from using a checkmark on an application as a shortcut for exclusion. By delaying questions about criminal history until later in the hiring process—often after an interview or even after a conditional offer—these policies aim to ensure candidates are first evaluated on skills and experience. But delaying the question is not the same as limiting how criminal history is used. In practice, many applicants are still screened out once background checks occur, often through broad, risk-averse policies that treat any record as disqualifying. And for some people—especially those affected by ongoing civil restrictions like sex offense registration—there may be no real “fresh start” because the punishment never truly ends. In short, Ban the Box is a helpful first step, but it is not enough to stop background checks from becoming a quiet, permanent barrier to employment.
April Is Second Chance Month: Why It Matters More Than Ever
Every April, communities across the United States pause to recognize a powerful truth: no one should be defined forever by their worst mistake. April is Second Chance Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness of the barriers facing people with criminal records and to promote policies and practices that support successful reentry, restoration, and community safety.
Cheapskates
The MDOC is exempt from the minimum wage law for paying inmates. It might be fair to call it slave labor since without inmates working to perform so many functions from food service to facility maintenance, the cost of incarceration would be far more expensive.
Butt Naked Fish
Not much needs more to be said about food service in the MDOC than to mention “Butt Naked Fish.” This will elicit a visceral response from anyone who has served appreciable time as a prisoner. BFN is an unbreaded fish fillet that has more in common with particle board than Van de Kamp’s.
Sabotage
A guy with a parole in his pocket gets caught with spud juice. (Happens more often than you would think.) His “friends” tried to talk him into closing his brewery, but he told them that he needed to stack up coffee bags since he was going to Detroit Reentry Center (DRC) for a residential substance abuse program and he needed to be able to buy heroin while he was there. His friend’s comment was I guess he didn’t really want to go home.
Educated Guess
I worked as a tutor in the GED program for nearly 5 years, under three different teachers at two different prisons. There isn’t much that was more rewarding then when one of my students would point me out to his family in the visiting room and say, “That man is helping me get my GED.” And there wasn’t much that was more frustrating than seeing a student who could get his GED fail to apply himself and leave prison with nothing to show for his time.
Nothing New Under the Sun
King Solomon famously stated in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that “there was nothing new under the sun.” Three thousand years ago man’s folly was already tending to repeat itself. Patterns of behavior and the propensity to do evil were well documented back then. Man’s inhumanity to man is the same old sad tale repeated over and over, unfortunately it is not limited to those who choose to do evil.
Breaking and Entering
No one in prison likes a thief. They target those they perceive as weak or look for targets of opportunity. When lockers are open there are always eyes watching to see what you’ve got. Being inattentive even for a few seconds can cost you. Not padlocking your locker or footlocker even for a brief time and leaving it unattended will provide an opening for theft.