Prison Subcultures and the Double Lives led by Corrections Staff

Sunday, July 05, 2009 Few American citizens are aware of the daily goings-ons inside the nation’s prison microstructures. In New York State prison has become “big Business” and generates industry in countless small towns’ upstate, towns that would otherwise suffer tremendous loss if the correctional institution holding it together closes down. The crime rate in New York City is secretly coveted by the prison industry which is a colossal monster, a sort of modern-day plantation housing hundreds of thousands of minorities and lower and middle class “inmates”, who many times, must learn to re-create themselves in order to survive within the subcultures of “the belly of the beast”. The Prison industrial complex of America is a paradoxical and lucrative entity and there are few states that have capitalized more on this commodity than New York State which boast that, “The New York State Department of Correctional Services is responsible for the confinement and [sic] habilitation of approximately 60,000 inmates held at 68 state correctional facilities plus the 916-bed Willard Drug Treatment Campus and the 100-bed Edgecombe Residential Treatment Facility.” (NYSDOCS Home Page)

Sociological Points of View: Researched Arguments on Public Aide

In “Moving out of Public Housing” Howard Husock offers an effective argument supporting government owned housing.  Presented by Catherine Bauer, a social reformer whose argument contended that it was “Only governments [that] can set up the new method of house production . . . to replace the wasteful and obsolete chaos still prevailing” (Husock, 89).  According to Husock, Bauer’s 1935 theory, that America’s privatized housing market had dominated the era allowing “small builders . . . front-foot lots and,” what she called, “the miserable straggling suburbs” to reign over other options. “The ideology of individual home ownership must go” she exclaimed. The idea of constructing city housing projects across the nation signified change and hope theories such Bauer’s brought about two significant events: the 1937 congressional debate during which Senator Robert Wagner argued allowing the construction of public housing would help Americans, “who live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions . . . detrimental to morals, to health and safety” (Husock, 100) and Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation producing the affordable housing projects of today.

Husock argued that those who advocated so strongly for the construction of Public housing never imagined, “the realities . . . as they exist today” (91) after all, the original intention for public housing was to provide affordable housing for working class people (91). Husock noted also that the former mission to provide housing for low-income, working-class families was altered by a host of social variables that I concur with to some degree. Multiple causations contributed to the decline of the projects.

Memorable Maddie Moments

"Oh, no!" David said, pulling his foot out of Cora Mae’s filthy bathtub. Cora Mae explained, "That’s how she left it! Drawers on the flo, ring ‘round the tub, her ratty, old, wig hangin’ atop that hook---jus didn’t even try an’ fix her mess none. That’s how Maddie was. Called ha self free spirited; towns’ folk called her a harlot. Imagine! Maddie walkin ‘round town, head high, struttin’ an’ gyratin’ like a lady of status an’ virtue. Made me sad watchin’. So I did what nobody in Stoddardville woulda. I invited her fo weekend soirees---well, ‘twas really Bible studies. Made Maddie change after while! But still, Nobody was mo surprised than me when Sweet Willie Saunter swept Maddie up, married her and, next thang I knowed, Maddie lockin’ her arms ‘round my neck whisperin’, “Chile, ahm Pregnant!” Wit Maddie gone, I jus nevah used that tub no mo, Davie. You understan’?