(MENAFN- Alghad Newspaper)
The video showing a number of inmates in the Suwaqa penitentiary cutting and hurting themselves stirred a lot of publicity, due to the bizarre nature of the incident. Footage of the incident, branded officially as 'riots, circulated social media and created a lot of traction. It was shockingly widespread and unfamiliar to the point that a legal committee was put together, by the Civil Society, to launch an investigation into the matter.
A lot of it remains unclear.
Why did was the inmates' mutilation of themselves depicted so directly? Why did the inmates hurt themselves in the first place? Were they planning to blame it on the guards? Or were they in a state of unconsciousness, as some claimed they were?
Perhaps it was an act of defiance against the police and the security guards of the correctional facility!?
We still do not know.
The legal committee visited the prison, and whatever the reason may be, the incident itself is cause to bring to light the reality of the 'prison society.
These supposed 'correctional facilities have become a criminal recreation facility, instilling and furthering the culture of crime. Not to mention religious extremism.
Inarguably, this is due to the absence of a correctional strategy and mechanism, and the state's failure to rehabilitate prisoners, psychologically, socially, and culturally.
During our work on the construction of the Salafi Jihadist current database in Jordan, we came across numerous cases wherein criminals would go from conventional crime to religious extremism. This goes for many of the Jordanians who went to Syria to fight alongside the religious extremist groups there.
Some of them were killed, others returned.
Many of them got in for fraudulence, forgery, and sexual harassment, and left the penitentiary as Jihadists and Daeshis!
The prison society has become a real issue now.
We have no comprehensive, integrated reforms strategy, to transform our jails from criminal, terrorist hot pockets, schools for terrorism and more crime, to a place of atonement and social rectification.
In fact, it is clear now that our prisons actually reinforce the culture of unlawfulness and defiance.
Meanwhile, the Suwaqa scene itself raises a more current, evident issue, regarding the fundamental transmutation our society is currently undergoing on all levels.
A lot of it, on the social level, outside of prisons mostly, has to do with the loss of identity and the rising sense of futility; a society in dismay.
Much if this is caused by the sudden collision with globalisation and new technology, and more so by the fall into poverty, unemployment, and widening income gaps.
In short, on the greater scale, the holistic social level, this has to do with the underlying political and economic crises, domestic and regional.
The spread of drugs, the essential change in criminal methods and behaviours, the gradual rise of religious extremism, social division, the generations' relationship to the media, are all phenomenon related to the factors above.
Likewise, all of these phenomenon, while they can be traced back clearly to the disintegration of society and economy, require thorough sociological research and studies.
Assumptions are not equal to findings.
We need to research the underway transmutations in society in order to diagnose and suggest ground, fundamental solutions.
In the meantime, there are various other issues, no less grave, socially speaking, which come in hand with these phenomenon.
From rising divorce rates to the duality and gap in education standards, notably between national and international curriculum, all through to the difference in culture between generations, and the governorates' relationship to the capital, which reflect economically and politically, all these issues require thorough, deep research.
We've spoken a lot before on the rise of violence in society and the greatening sense of sub-national and sub-social identities, notwithstanding.
We cannot keep ignoring these changes.
Turning the blind eye to social changes and shifts of such gravity will prove most costly to our society.
We must construct a clear, in-depth understanding of the current social ongoing, which is —as you all know— something we lack in our approaches to almost everything.
We are blind, sociologically and psychologically, to the scale and repercussions of the changes we are so easily dismissing.
Where is all this leading us? Where do we stand today? How far into the rollercoaster are we? What can we do?!
Sociologists, political experts, and psychologists, whom are in abundance at our schools and universities, not to mention our graduate schools, need to investigate this.
However, due to the state's monopoly on information, the fear of transparency and openness, there is a great shortcoming in these fields, which could otherwise greatly help in these regards.
There is an unfathomable wealth of information in the possession of the Supreme Judge Department on social transformations regarding the status of Jordanian families and households.
The same goes for all other aspects of the issues at hand, regarding terrorism, extremism, crime, notwithstanding.
Sometimes, it seems as though the government enjoys keeping the people and specialists in the dark!
This article is an edited translation of the Arabic version, published by AlGhad.
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