Why are we so obsessed with dehumanizing our inmates in prison if we expect them to come out of prison as changed people?
As reported by CBC earlier this year, former inmate Haris Naraine and a group of inmates pooled their money together in 2013 to buy a late night, adults-only cable subscription package for the television in Quebec’s Archambault Prison.
However, those channels quickly disappeared when they were taken away by Correctional Services Canada, who requested that all prisons in the country ban X-rated television content. Naraine complained, and became embroiled in a legal battle against the removal of his porn. After seeing the case go all the way to the federal court, a judge ruled in Naraine’s favour and brought back the entertainment.
It was just last month that Quebec’s Public Safety Minister Lise Theriault found out about the case, and she is now on a dedicated mission to install parental controls in prison so that no one will be able to watch porn in prison again.
Now that you’re all caught up, you’ll understand my original question.
Yes, those in prison have made some wrong, potentially incredibly harmful decisions in their lives, and prisons are designed to restrict their freedoms as a punishment for their actions.
However, at some point, many of them are expected to be released. If they show signs of progress, they can even be released early while on parole. It’s a meritocracy based on whether or not a prisoner is deemed able enough to function in society without posing the same risk they did before.
But they won’t get there if we take away all their freedoms and treat them like animals. Porn is one of those freedoms, like it or not.
Prisoners are going to have sexual needs and desires. If they are provided a safe outlet for those needs, it can remind them of what they are trying to get back to on the ‘outside.’ Porn is only going to do so much for them, after all.
On top of that, access to porn could potentially help decrease the amount of sexual assault that occurs in prisons; maybe it would help relieve some sexual tension that leads to these assaults. Canadian prisons have become an increasingly dangerous place for those on the inside, with instances of assault, sexual assault, and suicide attempts having risen dramatically between 2004 and 2012.
Inmates are already locked away from the life they’d presumably rather be living, and are subjected to some incredibly depressing conditions which, because they’ve made mistakes in their lives, seem to suggest they are no longer worthy of being ‘human’ and instead exist as a sub-tier.
Case in point: Saginaw County Jail recently changed their uniforms because they were too similar to those on Orange is the New Black. The sheriff was worried the show made the orange jumpsuits too fashionable, and reverted back to black-and-white stripes to reinforce that they were prisoners above everything else.
Yes, some people will be bothered that prisoners want porn. A lot of people get revolted by the thought of porn, and want it banned outright. But if you would fight for your right to porn, you should also be fighting for porn for inmates as well.
After all, they’re people too.
