Introduction

As I sat in the Suffolk county jail lobby I was more bored than anything. In front of me stood Sergeant Manning, a hard nosed guard with a scowl on his face. Manning surveyed the room we stood in and looked at all of the new faces. After a few moments, he gruffly said, "alright let's get started". All of the people in the lobby slowly sauntered though the reinforced iron doors. As I heard the doors shut behind me my boredom turned into nervousness. The realization dawned on me that once you entered this jail there was no leaving. The dark corridors made way into an illuminated cell block, where inmates lounged about in their 6 by 8 foot rooms barred by iron doors and a small plexiglass window being their sole connection to the outside area. I was in jail solely for a class field trip, but I couldn’t stand being in jail for four hours, let alone years. The United States prison system is a mess, and its about time we did something to fix it.