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The episodes topic is prison sports in San Quentin State Prison in California. The episode demonstrates the essential opportunities to engage with offenders through sports as an intervention for correction and highlights the increased re-offending rates among those released from jail. The episode also demonstrates that through sports, individuals engage with even the most complex and challenging persons incarcerated ( Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle, 2021). Following the episode, it is asserted that prison sports are more than just mere games for entertainment among inmates. Some of the prison sports include softball, volleyball, baseball, basketball, football, and tennis. Prison sports are sources of motivation to relieve stress, a positive means to prove to people that one can reform and do something useful in their life, and one way to actualize delayed dreams. Sports in prison allow offenders to experience an alternative form of excitement and risk-taking that provides access to positive role models and social networks (Moscoso-Sánchez et al., 2017). Therefore, in this episode study, the research establishes that prison sports are an important aspect of transforming the lives of prisoners in the correctional system.
In the episode, several issues that were covered include prison gangs, aggressive behavior and violence, substance abuse, and mental health problems. Prison culture is rooted within much broader structures such as gangs. The episode asserts that some inmates modify their bodies to fit in a gang and practice deviant counter-cultures to other prisoners. Body modification within prison is a popular act that serves as communicative encryption denoting gang affiliation and means of feeling confined and captured. Prisoners can join a particular gang as long as they physically show their affiliation through a physical modification that includes tattooing or shaving of hairstyle ( Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle, 2021). Prison gangs are products of different economic, political, and social forces that operate outside and within the prison. Demonstrating affiliation to gangs culture permits self-protection, gaining power, settling scores with other inmates, and improving accessibility to material resources.
Many prisons experience aggressive behaviors among inmates characterized by a broader range of abnormalities like impulsive aggression and physical fighting. However, the aggression between prisoners is undoubtedly an essential issue occurring to almost all prisoners. For instance, in this episode, prisoners demonstrate their aggression in sports and allege that it is part of their survival because of the hostile environment they live in ( Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle, 2021). Aggressive behavior is associated with anxiety and impulsiveness towards others which makes these behaviors dangerous to the general morale and safety of the prison setting. Sports have been demonstrated to be a better means to alleviate the issue of aggressive behaviors and promote a safe environment within the prison.
Furthermore, many prison environments experience violence that prisoners commit as they strive to survive and adapt to the prison system. To some extent, this violence is interconnected with broader power structures outside and inside the prison linked to prison culture. Sports are used to prevent violence because inmates who engage in sports are motivated by wanting to prove to the world that they are better people (Moscoso-Sánchez et al., 2017). Participating in sports also allows prisoners to meet with other professionals and coaches that guide them into transformation and become better people.
Based on the issue of drugs in prison, a considerable population of prisoners is associated with offenses linked with drug abuse. Managing drug dependence requires continuous therapeutic approaches that allow individuals to avoid withdrawal and relapse. Treatment of drug abuse in prison might be inadequate, and sports have promoted a drug-free environment (Moscoso-Sánchez et al., 2017). Engaging in sports preoccupies an individuals mind and concentrates on other matters of life, creating a positive environment. At the beginning of the episode, one of the inmates assert that individuals who engage in sport do not use cocaine because they do not have time for it. Besides, joining a prison sports team has immense benefits, such as a source of money, which can be earned and used to support other people in their lives ( Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle, 2021). However, enrolling an individual in prison sports takes time and requires self-dedication because, to some extent, denial and disappointments are linked with hopelessness.
Most of the individuals described in the episode have had prolonged incarceration, some lasting over 25 years, with others spending almost all their life from childhood in prison. In most cases, the prison system has been used to deter and punish wrongdoers. In these prisons, the conditions are often cruel and result in adverse emotional effects on prisoners. Long-term imprisonment is associated with post-traumatic stress disorders that follow individuals even after being released, barring them from living a healthy life afterward as they reenter society (Moscoso-Sánchez et al., 2017). Several rehabilitation programs have been enacted in prison to prevent associated disorders and promote successful reentry for released prisoners. The episode demonstrates that prisoners realize their true nature through prison and have self-evaluation that makes them survive the long incarcerations. Prisoners who focus on winning in sports to prove themselves, transform, and become better citizens who get back into society as changed people
Furthermore, living in a hostile environment requires inmates to learn and adapt to the principles of self and those of others making up their current society. The events happening in prisons cause some inmates to experience psychological torture, changing how they perceive others (Moscoso-Sánchez et al., 2017). The episode provides a broader view of how prisoners are hopeless in their life once imprisoned. For instance, one inmate from the episode feels a sense of losing hope about prison life, and he is not scared of dying ( Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle, 2021). The act demonstrates how prison changes the way individuals process situations and make decisions in prison and shows how it hinders developing potential relationships once they are out of prison.
In conclusion, from the episode, it can be depicted that prison sport is essential for the correctional system as it transforms the climate and subculture of prison to be safer for inmates and develop positive relationships among them. It is depicted that individuals who engage in sports have a reduced rate of re-offending because games help them think positively and are motivated to accomplish something meaningful in their lives. Engaging in sports creates positive mental development, builds relationships, and improves living in society. Prison sports improve relationships among inmates as they play together. It also creates a sense of excitement that boosts emotional levels among inmates and makes them change their behavior and aggression levels. Sports nurture one to regain their humanity as every individual who engages is propelled by the urge to prove to others that they can change and do something meaningful in their life.
References
Episode 66: Yard of dreams Ear hustle. (2021). Ear Hustle. Web.
Moscoso-Sánchez, D., De Léséleuc, E., Rodríguez-Morcillo, L., González-Fernández, M., Pérez-Flores, A., & Muñoz-Sánchez, V. (2017). Expected outcomes of sport practice for inmates: A comparison of perceptions of inmates and staff. Revista De Psicología Del Deporte, 26(1), 37-48.
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