Interview from prison: What an inhumane carceral system does to human psyches

In this urgent, exclusive interview for Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa speaks with Carla J. Simmons from inside the Georgia prison system, as well as Page Dukes of the Southern Center for Human Rights. Simmons, who has been incarcerated since 2004, recently published an article in Scalawag magazine on the irreparable psychological damage our inhumane system of mass incarceration inflicts on incarcerated people, prison staff, and the communities returning citizens re-enter upon their release. “There needs to be accountability for the psychological damage caused by incarceration as more and more members of society experience it, for longer periods of time,” Simmons writes. “If society upholds the pretense that jails and prisons act as a rehabilitative service, we must consider what condition these people will be in when they re-enter society.” Read Carla Simmon’s article for Scalawag, “Sentenced to Trauma: Inside the volatility and disorder of prison“: