Reflection Paper #1

During high school my class took a field trip to Cook County Jail in Chicago during a unit on crime and punishment. That was an experience I will never forget. While watching the video on Vincent Simmons I was immediately brought back to my trip there and the strong feelings of anger, sadness, and fear I experienced when I saw all of the inmates being held inside the glass windows of their recreation room. To me so much of the movie was about the need for justification and personal peace. Many of the people in the movie spent a lot of time justifying the situation of the inmates and Mr. Simmons so as what seemed to me a way to avoid guilt. The opening scene showed inmates working in the field with one of the guards explaining that the work they were doing was good for them and that it allowed them to work on their discipline. The scene looked eerily like a slave plantation with the guard filling the role of and overseer, using the same reasoning that was used to justify slavery. That alone made me sick. The parallels between the two situations made me furious at the system of exploitation. Later we were showed a man who had half of his life taken from him without a fair trial chance to reopen his case. When the case Simmons made had been presented to the parole board they disregarded it and attributed to him having such a long time to concoct a story to prove his innocence. They looked at the case, saw an error in the cases conduct, and dismissed it to avoid feeling guilty and to justify the first conviction. When Simmons left the room the voices of the parole board sounded so confident in their decision, even though there reasoning couldnt find a way to disprove the new evidence brought to the case. There was very little discussion about the new information and the decision was made

by one man for the group without giving much room to for the others to speak for Simmons even if they wanted to. The way the entire situation was handled was terrifying. It was so easy for these people in a position of power to act so unfair. It seemed at if they were immune to the possible implications of their actions. It was just a job to them, and they didnt respect the huge consequences a wrong decision could possible have on this man. I would never want to have that job. But watching this video made me want to have a job like that so I could feel like I might be able to make some difference in peoples lives. But while thinking about it I was wondering, would I even be able to do better? Everyone grows up with their own set of biases, some they are aware of and some they are not. How would I know if I had the most objectivity to make these decisions? When Simmons was informed of their decision he left the room and showed very little emotion while the papers were given to him. It seems as if he had already expected them not to believe him and understood his helplessness in the situation. It was heartbreaking to see him accept their decision without being able to show any anger. Later in class when we talked about learned helplessness it mad me think about him and how much longer he could be in this situation before he would give up on the value of his life and submit to a system that could be fatally flawed. Later I had a discussion with some peers on prisons and its effectiveness. It was amazing to me how heated everyone got over the conversation. No one wanted to be wrong over a matter where the stakes were so high. Everyone felt the need to justify their side in a way so they didnt feel guilty. I argued that I didnt think that jails were a good form of punishment because there were too many factors contributing to a persons motivation to be a criminal, and too many places in the system where mistakes could be made. I felt that

there should be more of a focus on rehabilitation and that money should be spent on helping these people instead of locking them up and leaving them no hope to improve themselves or their life. I am very concerned with the potential effect that jails can have on the course of a persons life and their mental state. When I visited the jail in high school I felt that the behavior of the inmates was disgustingly animalistic. Because they had been kept in such an unnatural system and treated like animals their actions resembled that of an animal. My friend felt that the states of jails were fine and that more money should be used to help people in impoverished countries that are in need of food and basic life needs. She felt that because these people had commit crimes, it was more important to focus on the innocent and unprotected. Both of felt very strongly about our sides and became angry and defensive. Later when we talked about it again I found out that much of her high school education had been about the state of third world countries, and I shared that my experience at Cook county jail. It was very interesting to me that after our exposure to different ideas we had taken our experiences and adopted these ideas. If we had each had the others experience would we have argued the others point? The movie and the conversations that followed really made me considered all the different places in our lives that the study of psychology influences. I am really exited to delve deeper and find ways the use psychology to help people.