Old way of the money

Ever since mankind evolved, he is known to barter things he had to get the goods or service he needed. He has and will always find a means to trade different things for what he needs in return. So why must not this be true in prison lives? Prison mates use what they have, especially cigarettes to purchase or exchange for what they need in return. You can look at practically any movie made thus far, for example ‘Shawshank Redemption’ or television serial ‘Prison Break’ and you would know what I meant. In the movie, Andy will use cigarettes to get favors like posters of "fantasy girlies" - first Rita Hayworth, followed over time by Marilyn Monroe and then Raquel Welch. He also uses bartering to get a rock hammer. All these bartering usually happen in the exercise arena where the cell mates are left to do whatever for a period of time during the day. In those movies, you will also see that other cell mates use cigarettes for gambling or betting or purchasing their favors or services. You get the idea, that the prison currency is not necessarily ‘dollars’ but ‘cigarettes’.


Now that cigarettes have their value in prisons, Virginia is following the federal prison system and other states like California, Texas and Michigan in banning cigarettes and smoking in Virginia prisons, in an attempt to make the state buildings smoke-free and protecting prison officials and other cell mates from passive smoke injury. This ban is to being in February of 2010 and for a year from then inmates and employees can undergo therapy programs to quit smoking. The argument that the state has on this effect is that they don’t want unhealthy inmates from being released into the society after they have served their time, posing a burden on the society. Now is that a concern for a person who has served many years in the prison being totally cut off from the outside world? As you would have seen in the movie, Red and the librarian are having problems in adjusting back into the society when being released after serving more than twenty years in prison. The least of their worries would be about smoking their entire life in the prison.


By banning smoking or cigarettes in prison, are the prisoners gaining anything? Of course, one could argue about passive smokers and secondhand smoke problems. Then assign designated areas where inmates and employees could go and smoke away. It is not that they are in confined areas and have nothing better to do the whole day but to smoke away. They have designated work schedule that they go about doing every day, unless they are serving time in confinement or in chains. So, by forbidding them from smoking, a simple joyful event, is the state punishing them more? Being in prison, cut off from the outside world is bad enough, along with the pains and crimes that happen within inmates. The state does not need to inflict pain by taking away guilty pleasures and sanity that keep their life moving (for some). After all, the inmates will need to find a new ‘currency’ to continue with their ways of lives in the prison to maintain their calm.