After someone commits a crime they are sent to prison to learn from their actions, but how are they supposed to change if prisons don’t offer anything to help? The book CGAS highlights a dystopian prison system that shows multiple different perspectives about being involved with prison systems. The author spreads his message by exaggerating true stories from real life to highlight and critique what needs to change with the criminal justice system to make it more just. Overall, the criminal justice system doesn’t truly help prisoners change, but leaves them with horrible treatment for them and their families. Prisons try to “help” but only end up making things worse and sees prisoners as profit not people. 

Prisons don’t truly help prisoners change for the better, but only leave more damage. For instance, many children/ families' lives are heavily impacted and no one truly takes that into account. In the book, Chain Gang All Stars we get many different perspectives, one being a protester. We meet the character Mari and we learn about her family background and how it impacts her today. The author writes, “Her father, a man she hardly knew, had committed a murder. He had committed sexual assault. She was ashamed to have come from him.” (171) The words, “ashamed to have come from him” highlights how she is a child of the incarcerated and how she is negatively impacted by this fact. Although she is ashamed of her father being involved with the system, she gets involved herself. The book uses her story to highlight many others who have been involved their whole life, and how sometimes it's hard to not get involved when that's all they have known. The character Mari highlights,”She wasn’t justice involved. She was involved with justice.” (173) This is the case for many involved with the system. Although they are not the ones who committed the crime, they are involved to some extent. This cycle of involvement needs to end, not just in the book but also in real life. In America, hundreds go to jail everyday, that means hundreds of families are impacted every day yet children suffer the most, “Destruction of yet another American family unit by the meat grinder that is our criminal justice system. Innocent children fall to the wayside in the wake of this incarceration machine." (Incarceration is a vicious cycle) Too many children fall victim to this fate yet there is little to no options to help them cope and deal with this. Since there is little to no resources for children especially, they become involved with the system in some way. Examples of this is that many end up becoming wards of the state, justice, or even going to prison themselves. In the article the author states, “I’ve been both a victim of this process as a child, and a perpetrator of it as an adult.” (Incarceration is a vicious cycle) Although everyone's experience is different, one person going to prison can start a chain reaction. But we can stop this cycle by improving the system as a whole. The author was a victim of this as a child and an adult. Prisons are meant to prevent crime, not fuel it.

Although the main idea for prisons is for them to be harsh, harshness is not what they need to change. For instance solitary confinement, and weapons like the influencer more often than not only makes the prisoner's condition worse. In this book, in the prison system you are able to choose; you can fight to the death or go to solitary confinement.  But there are other ways they can learn from lessons, “It was all death, slow or fast. Painful or sudden. Nothing more. The culture of Chain Gang was death.” (42) words like “all death” and “culture” highlight how the prison system doesn’t truly care for prisoners and their well being. This makes them believe the assumption that they can do anything to them, thinking it will change them for the better. In reality it's nothing like that -  the guards treat them anything but like humans because of their past thinking they can’t change, “your trap needs to be shut, convict,’ the guard repeated.”(26) the tone of the guard tells us he has no remorse and believes he can treat them however he wants. They use this as a power tactic to get them and others to listen to them. For instance, they also do this to protesters that go against the ways they are treating prisoners, “officers pulled a weapon that looked like a gun from his side and shot the black rod into Mari’s neck.” (371) the cop “Influencing” Mari, someone who was not a part of CGAS, getting hurt by the guard, symbolizes that they think anyone who believes the prisoners should be treated better is below them. This ideology that hurting people spreads a bigger message only hurts people's growth more. If prisons want to help people the right way they should figure out why they did it instead. 

Another option instead of CGAS is solitary confinement, yet time and time again it has never helped. The character Loretta Thurwall who switched from prison / solitary confinement to CGAS who was once involved with neo slavery, "stopped working her busy work because conditions in her own prison were beneath human decency and beneath human dignity.” (278) words like “beneath human decency” highlight one system is not better than the other. She, along with others joined, CGAS = death sentence, showing they would rather die than be treated even worse. Although every system has flaws it correlates to how people are treated in America, “America locked up more people in isolations than any other democratic country.” (125) America prides itself on justice, but how are we supposed to believe that if prisoners are not given real help. Ways abolitionists / reformers want to change prisons is by giving them correct mental health treatment. For instance, they want to create, “secure mental health step down units,’ which provide housing and treatment for inmates with serious mental illness and history of violence.” (US department of justice) we need more facilities like this so people can truly improve and change, Because things like solitary confinement only make people “Crazier” instead of truly caring they only truly care about profit and not about prisoners themselves. 

Lastly, the book continues to highlight real issues with the system by using exaggeration to show how prisons only care about profit. Prisons like in CGAS often exploit their prisoners for money, which only hurts / and  is more detrimental to their well being, making them less likely to improve. For instance, “Today, privately owned prisons and detention centers are part of an immense multi-billion dollar enterprise that profits off punishment.”(Brennan center for justice) words like, “profits off punishment” put into reality what CGAS is trying to tell us. The author spreads this message by showing how it makes prisoners feel when they know they are only profit, “She tried to absorb these moments, these few moments in her life when she was not being observed by hundreds and thousands” (26) In CGAS the main plot is that the prisoners fight to the death, and it's a huge money making industry, This isn't too far off from the system now. The criminal justice system isn't just if they don’t do anything to help all parties involved. With this, if they focused on their well being more things would change. Instead of using the money they make off prisoners they could spend it on things to help them improve, “There are a number of reforms that can ensure outcomes for the individuals incarcerated and detained in these facilities, such as performance based contracts.” (US department of justice) if more prisons did things like this more crime would be prevented. Yet, if crime was prevented prisoners would lose money. This highlights how prisons / the criminal justice system needs to focus on improving the people rather than finding more ways to make money. 

In conclusion, this is why I believe prisons don’t truly help prisoners change and improve for the better. They instead only use and abuse them for profit, treat them and their families horribly and lastly give them treatments that don’t help. My essay shares ways we can help and ways we need to improve with still making a positive and impactful change.