Journal 3-3: Life and Death

I. In last week's journal I asked the question of where the majority of a minimum wage worker's income goes to. When I researched this topic there wasn't a very large range of information to look at pertaining to what I was exactly looking for which was rent or food or etc. Instead I found an interesting argument as to whether minimum wage should be abolished. Surprisingly there were many more reasons as to why minimum wage should be aoblished rather than why it should not. One of which was that businesses would expand and grow more, which is wrong. We can't just look at the business itself, but we have to look at the American people.







Another point was a reason we should keep the minimum wage was because teenagers would be constantly taking adults' jobs because they would work for less money. Which is very true but would also completely off set the American economy. All in all taking away minimum wage would be disastrous because so many live people live in poverty that work in minimum wage jobs, and it doesn't need to be cut down anymore.







II. In Ethics these past two weeks, we've been watching a 30 Days where Morgan Spurlock is incarcerated in a Henrico County Jail. He spends his time at one jail, I think West, at first but then is moved to the East jail. There was a very large difference in the West and East jails. The West jail was not very helpful to the inmates, there wasn't really any type of rehabilitation, and it seemed like their real punishment was having absolutely nothing to do. While in the East jail had a rehabilitation program for drugs and it gave the inmates the oppourtunity to find a job closely after leaving jail.







I really enjoyed watching this 30 Days for various personal reasons, none for me personally but people I've known to be incarcerated. It was like taking a look into what it was like for them. I had no idea that jail was like that. To me it wasn't nearly as brutal as everyone makes it out to be, but I also remember that the difference between jail and prison is the brutality. Morgan handled himself very well in the jail, and it kind of felt just like one big family. Sure there were some slip ups, but I feel like I could handle it. The only big problems I have with jail is that the dehumanize you in order to reduce you to a number, and also in jails like the West one they do nothing to help the inmates. Which means they'll be back in in no time. It's a revolving door for some people.







When watching the episode I made the connection with the actual inmates that we saw. The fact that Travis and George were back in jail after a short amount of time made me really sad. It made me think of how bad a drug addiction can be for some people, and how some really need a lot more help than a jail can offer. When researching the actual drug rehabilitation process in jail, I saw that in Atlanta they give some drug addicts the alternative to go to drug rehabilitation rather than jail. The reason they mainly did this is because the incarceration level had pretty much doubled between 1975 and 1995. Which I believe is a very good reason to try to give an alternative. The picture below shows me that there is hope for all kinds of rehabilitation programs.




III. After watching this 30 Days, I ask the question about what do jails do about the people like Randy in jail? How are the mentally challenged affected by jail or what do jails do in order to accomodate these people?









Sources:







Messerli, Joe. (November 11, 2001). Should the Minimum Wage be Abolished. http://www.balancedpolitics.org/minimum_wage.htm







(March 12, 2012). Alternative to Jail. http://atlantarecoverycenter.com/drug-rehab-program/alternative-jail-incarceration/







(March 12, 2012). 10 U.S. Prisons with Impressive Libraries. http://www.care2.com/news/member/939310581/2668534