How are women prisoners in US jails

Today I want to tell you about a prison in Arizona called Estrella. It is the only one of its kind in the US prison where inmates girls do their work together, but are constrained between a long chain. As a rule, this method has previously been used only in men's prisons, but now the turn and zhenschin.

In general, this system has been traditional for the southern states of the USA in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, and in 1955 abolished as inhumane and does not meet the spirit of the present time. However, in 1995 it again began to be applied to the male contingent in some prisons south of the United States of America. And in prison Estrella downtown Phoenix decided to go even further - to extend the system of such punishment and women for the simple reason that both women and men in the United States have equal rights and therefore no one should make any poblazhki.

But enough lyrical digressions - time to move on to the point. Under existing rules, this program is called "Last Chance" and can be assigned only to those women prisoners who are serving their sentences for not very serious articles (such as driving while intoxicated, false testimony, petty fraud and theft of goods in supermarkets) and for a period no more than 1 year. To some it may seem surprising, but a sentence of tying up a chain of free and public works women prisoners choose for themselves entirely voluntary manner. The causes which impel many American zechek make such a choice, a very prosty.

According to court sentences, despite the relatively short time of his release, most of them are appointed by the rigors of punishment (something like punishment cells, to put it to the Russian style). This mode of punishment involves compulsory wearing striped prison robes, bezvylazno finding prisoners in 2 - 4-bed cell for 23 hours a day and a meager 2 single pitanie.

The prisoner is also forbidden to have around salt, cigarettes, coffee, ketchup and mirrors, listen to music and watch TV (with the exception of programs about the weather and how to prepare delicious food), and for any trip to the nurse they have to pay $ 10 and see with incoming to them on a date relatives only through the glass. The trick here is that after serving 30 days of voluntary Spent chain and free public works convicted women receive special certificates, and with it the right to resettlement in the overall campground with light duty further punishment.

In turn, the system itself Chain Gang involves the binding of a long chain 5 arestantok and joint execution of activities such as garbage collection on roadsides, mowing weeds on vacant lots (at the local 40 - 45 degree heat) and dumping the bodies of homeless people in the city cemetery. A main goal of such a system of punishment, according to the head of the prison, is short-sighted thinking to train inmates for discipline and organization in their actions and for all counter the lure ever again allow the offense in his zhizni.