Imagine you are serving a 25 years sentence at the Arizona State Penitentiary in Florence. You are only on the 5th year of your sentence. You rely on the smallest events during you day to get you by.
Every minute of the day passes at an indescribably slow pace. Every side of every meal, every sheet of paper, every human interaction means the world to you.
These minute details of your day carry so much weight. Then one day, someone decides to make some “small changes” to your daily routine, your so-called life in prison.
Arizona has been feeling the economic pressure just as every other state in this country.
The largest cuts in our state’s budget for 2011 have been made in education including both K-12 and universities. However, significant cuts have been made in the areas of state prisons.
For the fiscal year 2012, our state is looking at a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. This means that even greater changes will be made.
Already, Arizona is changing the policy for visitation privileges. According to The Associated Press, visitors 18 and over now must pay a $25 fee.
For family or friends of inmates visiting from a distance, the additional cost of the visitor fee can be a wrench in their plans.
Inmates depend on maintaining friendships and familial relationships through visitations during their sentence.
Murdock Murdock, a reporter for The Huffington Post, wrote, “Family support is imperative for success in and after prison to prevent recidivism. But visitors to prison are often treated like inmates, too.”
Also in the works are plans to rework the state’s entire criminal code to allow for less inmates serving hard time thus allowing the prisons to be run by less guards. Less guards and staff, in turn, mean fewer programs for inmates.
Other states in the country have decided to take more drastic, insensitive measures when it comes to saving money in the state corrections department.
In Texas, the department of corrections has drastically altered the three square meals a day policy for their inmates. The quality of food and portions of the food have decreased. The number of meals each day has been severely narrowed as well.
Despite what your convictions may be about convicted criminals, they are human. They deserve to be treated as such.
Taking a meal away from an individual who already has nothing is wrong and depraved.
It is my sincerest hope that Arizona realizes the delicate balance of the lives that the inmates of our state funded prisons lead and the reliance they have upon the little things they cleave to each day.
To us a visitor from a family member may be just a pleasant surprise, but to someone sentenced to a life behind bars it is a reason to live another day, a reason to hope.
Social stigmas should not prevent us from providing basic human rights to other human beings. The lowest on the societal totem pole should not bear the weight of an entire country’s mistake.
Reach the columnist at ebeckley@asu.edu
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