SUICIDE

In today's prison system, suicide is one of the saddest realities that our world has to offer. The amount of pain, loneliness, and sorrow that can compel someone to take their own life is something that a human being should not ever have to know.
 

The utter despair that must drive this dark abyss to exist in a person is something that should demand from us a need to understand and a need to prevent. This should be a given, but in prison where compassion is an endangered species, there are very few that a hurt soul can turn to.
 

From the guards to the mental health staff, they have come to look at those incarcerated as one-bill-fits-all. There is no individualism when it comes to many staff members. They are taught not to believe anything those "in blue" say, so when an inmate goes to them and tells them they are feeling like killing themselves, there are some staff members that say things like, "show me, don't tell me", and the inmate walks back to the dorm, ties a sheet to a pipe 30 feet up in the air from the second tier around his neck and leaps off the guard rail.
 

There are those who are at such an empty and lost state, that they slice open their veins to bleed out in the isolation of their cells just to end the misery that prison presents. Some say they should have thought about that before they did the crime, but is our prison system suppose too bring this level of despair...or was it meant to bring hope.
 

The Compound Interest Effect for society turning a blind eye to this "unfortunate" situation that the inmate put himself in, is something we as a society miss much of the time. When the effects of prison establish this type of mindset in an individual and they fail in their mission to take their own life, they are forever scarred with what got them to that point. There is very few that can come back from that abyss and when they are released from prison they come back to us.
 

Too often, the prison does not worry about what the inmate will do upon release, they simply say "we'll be here when he comes back". This detachment from putting society first is what Society-First is all about changing. We want a system that puts us first in everything it does.
 

Some say the answer is to just leave them in prison where they belong, yet the Compound Interest Effect of this is what has brought us to this point. This mindset has failed and has only multiplied the negative effect with broken homes and parent less children being raised by other children, and a future of second offenses.
 

We, here at Society-First, invite those who have been affected by this epidemic, whether an ex-offender, inmate, family member, victim, church, correctional officer, or simply a citizen to share their personal experience, solutions, or questions concerning this plight on the prison system.
 

Please, provide any comments, testimonies, facts, or points that you want Society-First to look further into. Send us your story, or video gram by emailing us. Check the category that best fits the point of your concerns and/or comments. We look forward to hearing your feedback on what's important to Society-First.