SWA 3

            The article I decided to discuss is “Our Prison System”.  This article explains the cruelty that occurs in prison. There are many extremely negative aspects to the prison system. One of the biggest problems is the amount of people we have incarcerated that seems to be way to large. Other problems include the effects of isolation, and sexual and physical assault. I think one of the most important issues that was discussed in this article is the spread of HIV in prisons. If criminals will rape another prisoner in jail, then they will most likely rape someone outside of prison. If these people are contracting HIV in prison, it’s terrible to imagine how many innocent victims are going to get it outside of prison. I feel like this article says that basically, as a country, we’re very blind to the different world that lies within a prison fence. This article made me think a lot. By comparing our prison system to China, it evokes a feeling of nationalism that really helps get the point across.

            The photo that I chose to talk about is figure 2.4 on page 28 in Chapter 2. In this image, a robot machine is shown folding a bed. The quote reads “anti immigration nation: hotels fund robots to replace migrant housekeepers”. I chose this picture because I think it really makes a good point. Instead of giving jobs to real people who are in poverty, we are so concerned with immigrant labor issues that we would rather pay money to make robots do their jobs. I think this picture really shows how ridiculous and caught up in this issue some Americans are. Although there are many illegal immigrants, they do the jobs that many Americans would not do anyways. I think the satirical humor in the picture further emphasizes how silly the hype about the situation really can be. If we could genuinely end illegal immigration, and send all the illegal immigrants back to their home countries, we would then have to figure out what to do in the industries that were run by these immigrants and in the mean time, who knows what could happen. I think there are far more pressing issues in this country, such as the prison problem, the economy, and the environment, and all of those make the illegal immigration issues seem miniscule.