92. What’s wrong with prisons

I went to a screening for a documentary about meditation yesterday. One of the most memorable scenes is a guru teaching prison inmates meditation and how they transformed after that. That got me thinking because I associate prison with so much negativity. It’s relieving to see some positive energy from the inmates, to see that they feel at peace with their situation and hopeful of their life ahead.

I believe in the saying that we are the average of 5 people we surround ourselves with. And I’m not sure if throwing convicts to the cells and surround them with mischievous and harmful individuals for years will actually do them any good. They might come out worse and miserable as the product of such environment. I know that prison is supposed to be a tool that punishes individuals for their wrongdoing. But it should also be a platform that enables them to change. A platform that course-correct someone’s life when they go sideways.

More program like meditation should be made possible. They should also consider mixing people based on people’s quality. E.g. to maintain a mix or interaction of people that consists individuals with better influence, which would result in an average of good quality for all members of the group.

Maybe a preventive measure could have worked better. Many people go to prison not knowing how terrible it feels like. Because they’ve never experienced it. It’s like how we grew up knowing not to touch the boiling pan because we’ve hurt ourselves doing it before. People’s future is almost doomed when they got incarcerated. So there should be a system that instills enough fear in people and prevent them from ever committing any crime that could lead them to jail. Maybe getting all citizens to stay the night in a prison once every two to three years will do the trick?