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At the California Men's Colony prison northwest of San Luis Obispo early Sunday morning, one inmate was killed and others were injured in a violent riot. The riot involved 160 men and police intervened immediately spraying the crowd with pepper spray and shooting the inmates with rubber rounds. Nine of the 160 men were taken to the hospital with stab wounds and one inmate died a couple hours later. Authorities are not positive what started the riot and are looking more into the event in the following days.After hearing about this outbreak, I think it is important for prisons to have high security so events like this never happen. Although we would have to pay for this, I think in the long run it is better for our safety as well as the safety of the guards who can experience a riot like this at any point but better security would prevent a riot to this extent from breaking out.
Article Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-prison-riot-20170924-story.html
3 comments:
I noticed that the article also mentioned that Sundays are days when there is potential for up to 600 inmates to be out together in the yard. Reserving any form of judgement, I simply think such a great number of people in one area is risk enough, let alone the kinds of people that would be interacting with one another. I'm not opposed to strengthening security, however I also think it may important for these prisons to be more carefully maintained. This prison has been around for over 60 years. They may be set in their ways, but I find it odd that one would allow for so many inmates to be together, in a yard, on any given day. Maybe more has to be done to maintain and oversee prisons instead of merely strengthening guards.
I don't necessarily agree that strengthening security would prevent riots like this from happening. Although it will help in dealing and stopping riots before the riot gets too violence, I think another way to look at this is, what's causing these riots? Like Ariana mentioned, to have up to 600 inmates to be out in the yard together is quite a risk. In addition, I think there should be ways to make the prison experience of inmates more "pleasant". Happier inmates would prevents riots from happening. Overall, I believe there are tons that can be improved in a prison, not just the security.
Security can and should be improved in prisons to prevent such situations from occurring. However another thing, which have already been stated by Ariana and Serena is that having 600 inmates be out is a huge safety hazard for the prisoners and guards alike. Not only does it increase chance of a break out but also increases contact with prisoners which could lead to physical conflict. Changing how the prison runs altogether could be a great improvement to the safety of the establishment.
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