denied access to lawyers, outside exercise, and for days at a time were not allowed to shower. Officials were also accused of using excess force and segregation. Like most other countries around the world, Canada's prison system is overcrowded and maintains a violent environment. Few of the lessons learned in any prison are positive and most prisoners return to society in worse shape than when they went in. The lessons they learn in prison make them dangerous as well as dysfunctional. Prisoners around the world in tense and overcrowded penitentiaries live in an environment where a knife to the throat or a metal pipe to the back of the head is a socially appropriate response to an insult. People may be attacked for looking someone in the eye, glancing into someone else's cell, or taking too long in the shower. Prisoners must be ready to defend themselves at all times and failure to retaliate will be looked at as a sign of weakness. They learn to make weapons out of toothbrushes, pens, chair legs, and other household objects. Universally, the best way to earn respect in prison is to act with extreme violence and get in the first blow. Guards reinforce many prisoners' belief that violence, intimidation and force are normal ways of dealing with problems. The prisoners know what hypocracy lies in the system. For drug dealers, a prison system is a business opportunity. When societies put their drug users in jails rather than treatment centers there will always be a demand for drug dealers in jails. Prisoners who are nonusers feel pressured to indulge so their peers don't suspect them of being informants. People tend to use hard drugs like heroin in prison because it metabolizes faster and won't show up as readily on a drug test. Heroin is plentiful but needles are scarce and are shared with as many as 15 prisoners. This causes prisoners to return to society with a heroin habit and a high risk o...
