Prison Punishment Philosophy
Guantanamo bay is a military prison of the United States and it is located in the Guantanamo Bay base of the US navy. The prison was given the name Guantanamo due to the way prisoners are sentenced without any trials at all. The prison mainly deals with terror related criminals thus sentencing them without any trials. Most of the prisoners are mainly from the Middle East, with some coming from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Algeria (Vesely, 15). The prisoners are mainly captured during war in different countries. These prisoners are mainly rebels of the ruling government or otherwise they are linked to terrorist groups in different parts of the world. Most of the prisoners in the prison were not actually captured by the US army in the field, but by the citizens of their countries, this is because the US offered $5000 for each prisoner.
The inmates are subjected to harsh treatment upon their arrival, they are tortured and forced to give more information about the groups that they had been working with. Due to the harsh treatment that the inmates face, most of them end up committing suicide in order to avoid passing through a lot of problems. Moreover, the detainees sometimes are forced to go without food for some days which is a punishment (Vesely, 15). The prisons are also kept in very bad conditions and one can easily fall sick due to the poor prison conditions that the prisoners are subjected to. The many punishment philosophy in Guantanamo bay is torture, thus most of the detainees tend to suffer due to the effects of being tortured. Furthermore, the prison does not observe the medical laws, thus a prisoner can only be given medical attention when he is about to die or else when his conditions seems to be worsening.
Compared to Eastern state penitentiary, Guantanamo is more of a hell since the detainees are usually tortured in order to provide information. Eastern state penitentiary was also more of a rehabilitation prison where the prisoners were only subjected to solitary confinement which is the same as self-torture. In eastern state penitentiary, prisoners were allowed to enjoy medical laws and they were also provided with food on a daily basis (Vesely, 16). This consequently means that Guantanamo bay is only meant to humiliate the detainees and make them to speak and give more information about what they actually know. Moreover, Guantanamo bay, is not a rehabilitation centre since the detainees are usually treated in a very inhumane way. Whatever is required of them is only to provide information that may be of use to the US military, thus the US military is not concerned with the type of life that the person will lead after being released, since the detainees are not usually sure of they will one day be released.
Eastern state penitentiary and Guantanamo bay also have similarities and this includes the less capacity to hold large numbers of detainees. Both prisons had a large number of inmates despite of their small capacity to hold such numbers. This consequently led to the spread of diseases in the prisons thus making the prisoners to suffer due to the poor medical assistance provided (Vesely, 16). According to my point of view, I think the eastern state penitentiary could have been a slaves prison in it could be operating in the mid-1800. This is consequently because, during that period, mostly the African Americans were being segregated and thus they formed movements which were against the law.
Work Cited
Vesely, Milan. "Guantanamo: where do we go from here? President Obama has pledged to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Still to be decided is how the US justice system will deal with the inmates and the international repercussions--a legacy of the dubious integrity of the George Bush regime. Milan Vesely reports from the United States." The Middle East 2009: 28. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Eastern State Penitentiary: Retrived from: http://www.easternstate.org/home
