Prisons – Hostile Territory in no man’s Land

Most people think of no man’s land as a vast waste area that is unoccupied and always hostile as it divides two or more territories between the good and the enemy. Rarely do we think of it as peaceful and take it for granted that the term serves a purpose for the good of society and the parting of men and women alike behind barbed wire or high razor sharp fences. Hostile territory that brings doubt and skepticism as this land is always under dispute, controversy or conflicts. Whether the conflict is political, financial or moral, the war has been waged for centuries why we have such conditions and what there is to be accomplished by having them situated like this where grown men and women fear to tread without some kind of protection.

Therein exists the fears of rape, murder, assaults and thievery that is beyond society’s understanding. It is almost criminal how we ignore this piece of land and pretend it doesn’t exist except for those caretakers and gatekeepers that work hard to keep it out of the headline news and safe to the public night and day.
It was the Army that first employed the term but it has been expanded to include penitentiaries and other detention facilities that hold convicted felons and devious minds. One must experience the culture and mindset in order to understand it completely but if you do enough research you might be able to envision what is really going on there beyond this no man’s land but seeing only the tip of the iceberg at best. No man’s land does more than separate the good from the bad. An invisible line to some and blurred lines to others, there are deep emotions attached to this term as it means so many different things to different people. To some it means incarceration for life or death; for some it means a lengthy separation from family and friends.  

There are too many people that work there it is a means of job security as it is very likely such a place will never disappear and dissipate into the fog or air. No man’s land is here to stay. No man’s land means doing time and doing time means profits to some. Regardless of what your thoughts are, for the past twenty years prisons and jails have grown and become a major industry in our country. America is the world’s leader in jailing and imprisoning people. Strangely, the United States incarcerates 25 per cent of the world’s prison population when in fact it only represents 5 per cent of the world population. It is no secret that the prison industrial complex has received much needed help from legislators enabled by many lobbyists that have paid a good price to see the industry grow exponentially in size and in costs.

The fact remains, America is under siege with many of their young men and women facing jail time or doing time in the penitentiary for breaking felony laws. Our country has waged an internal war against drugs, the border, Wall Street corruption and violence inside our communities and schools. Regardless of what we have done to make it safer, prisons remain full and alternatives are sparsely used in fear of letting out those that might harm or children or families thus release is guarded and deliberately stalled to control the numbers back on the streets.

The bottom line is we have to realize that this no man’s land is very expensive to maintain – although it may be unproductive and filled with human beings and sometimes void of any living vegetation, resources or structures, it has to be maintained at a top dollar price. The upkeep of such concepts are never ending. This unwanted land saps the financial coffers of local people, states and federal governments beyond their ability to replace the funds draining much more than it will ever give back. Little is realized just how much water and other natural resources are drained into the mouths of dungeons and obscurity.

The only way we can make the costs more bearable is to make it productive. Work on solutions to offer law breakers alternatives while reducing prison populaces and jails so that the costs are reduced and repaid by those who attend their punitive but reformative programs and pay society back.  We must instill personal responsibility and make them aware of all consequences but we need to find a better way to deal with their justice. We need to teach those incarcerated the right ways of society’s rules and consequences for breaking them.

Allowing behavioral and therapeutic treatment plans to work hand in hand with sound security to keep it safe and a better making it more empathetic amongst men and women that find the current existence of no man’s land acceptable although they have never set a foot on such desolate and wasted land.  We need to kill the apathy and bring back common sense and empathy so that we may re-structure what has become our no man’s land in hostile territory.