-Former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger

This challenge is set out in our prison system everyday, as more and more crime is committed. In New York, in 1819, a prison was opened in Auburn that would spawn many prisons built around the same ideas of a maximum-security prison. Attica was opened in 1931, it was the most expensive prison built to date; and according to the builders it was escape proof. However, this would prove to be one of its downfalls resulting in a massive riot that occurred for four days. The prison is still open today and houses some of our most delinquent offenders. The future of the prison is still to be decided but there are some things that are to be discussed as to which direction the officials who decide on policy are concerned.

In the nineteen twenties New York’s prison population kept rising, because of the seeming lawlessness of the era. The legislature responded

The event resulted in twenty-six years of legal pressure with the State of New York. The State decided to pay eight million dollars to the inmates of Attica for suffering endured. Court Judge Michael Telesca oversaw the legal events. However, the correctional officers and their families never saw any form of compensation except for the regular death benefits or workers compensation that was awarded. This is still being debated today in court.

After the initial media blitz the State of New York denied the public access to the details of the riot and retaking of the prison until twenty twenty-two. Records will again be available at this time.

On September ninth, nineteen seventy-one a prison riot started that would leave forty-three dead. Attica had taken a step from a prison into a rebellious playground. The inmates were growing tired of poor living conditions and decided after many other tactics that an uprising was the only way to get the “outside” world to take notice and commit to some form of action. That fateful day the inmates spoke out by taking forty prison guards hostage. One of the guards was beaten severely and released during the action to the police for medical care, unfortunately the officer died a few days later. The inmates wrote a formal “list of demands” that the negotiators were to strictly follow, however, the demands could not be met and in a decision by former Governor Nelson Rockefeller and former Prison Warden Russell Oswald the National Guard was to retake the prison.

The future of our prison system lies within the public and its involvement with the reformation of our system and doctrine. The public must take an active role in the decisions made for our prisons. Former chief justice Warren E. Burger warned that ‘our trait of impatience has distorted our approach to the problems of prisoners and rehabilitation.’ However, he also tells us that time is running out. This is an increasing problem over the ages. Attica will have another riot, the question is will we let it be another famous riot or will it turn out to be that one inmate had a minor authority altercation.

All these words were inconsequential when we look back at them, since not much has changed over the years. When events like the Attica Prison riot happen there is a period of change to the systems of justice and human values to appease the public, however these changes are at best repressive and sometimes

Some topics in this essay:
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