A successful re-entry starts when convicted and sentenced. You should have the mindset to better yourself, establish and maintain healthy habits, which will eventually become routine and embedded in your daily activities.
Those, who had a healthy life and healthy habits on the outside, will only grow more.
For those, who have never had a structured, healthy habitual life, transition into and out of prison will come with a myriad of challenges.
Post-COVID, the US prisons have flooded and became overcrowded, where at the same rate staff shortages grew exponentially. This has resulted in extreme staffing issues nationwide, causing unnecessary lockdowns and lack of programming on a regular basis.
The vast majority of incarcerated individuals cannot maintain healthy habits without consequential programming and counseling.
What the prison management nationwide fails to see, is that incarcerated individuals are a “work in progress”, they need to be taken by the hand, and submerged in the world of rehabilitation.
Only then, will they succeed in society.
At the moment, the sole focus in prisons seems to be feeding the prison population 3 x per day, provide them with the bare minimum of necessities and they are expected to program and rehabilitate themselves for the large part.
Staff are overworked, newly hired staff are not happy with the double and triple shifts, are frustrated and will take it out on incarcerated individuals. Medical and Psychology staff are not interested in the well-being of the incarcerated, hence the many (preventable) deaths.
Prison reform is needed now and should be prioritized on the political agenda,
Sherida Nabi
