Apathy or Ignorance

Why is it so difficult to find support for reforming our broken criminal justice system from main stream America? Is it that they just don't care? Is it that they are not aware of what goes on around them every day? Is it that most Americans have no reason to worry about it one way or the other? Is it that the goings on within the criminal justice system is not a part of their world so they assume that God is in his heaven and all is right with the universe? Yeah, me too. I don't know either but here are a couple of observations.

Now I had never heard of a company by the name of "Moosejaw." I guess it is that down here in the "wilds" of South Georgia there is not much call for ski equipment and super cold weather clothing. But, it seems that Moosejaw decided that it would be a real attention grabber to build a new ad campaign based on the premise that being in prison is funny and something to make light of. One ad in the catalog shows a model behind bars wearing the latest fashion in fleece from Moosejaw and there is more. You even get your own "Jail Activity Book" just chock full of fun and games to help you while away the hours of your incarceration. How about this one, A "Don't Get Shanked In The Shower" maze. Great fun, right?

Moosejaw wonders why so few of its customers have "done time" and makes a joke that this is "unacceptable." Then there are the greeting cards to "assist" people doing time. There is one to "celebrate" the inmate's 25th anniversary. Now me, well, I love a good joke as much as the next guy but this is totally unacceptable.

I am not going to take up your time here telling you all of the reasons that it is unacceptable as Matt Kelley has done his usual good job of doing that in his post at change.org. What took me by surprise, though in retrospect I don't know why, were the responses attacking Matt's position.

Comments included reference to the "'underprivileged' trash of our society, then went on with "How can you defend criminals?? They are serving time for a reason", "GO MOOSEJAW!! I think I'm going to buy a hoodie and march in the upcoming Christmas parade", "Stop sticking up for the prisoners. They've got bigger things to worry about, and I'm guessing they don't really need you protestors to fight their battles for them," Who will if we don't? "each and every one of them committed some crime severe enough to end up in prison", and here is IMHO the best of the bunch, "While I do support an education system for inmates, I cannot support providing any assistance after they are let out." I guess this means that he is ok with spending millions to build new prisons to house the recidivist but not a dime to prevent it.

Then, to cap off an already bad day, I get up this morning and read the following in the "Squawk Box" section (you can make short anonymous comments on anything) of my local paper. "Ever notice that most crimes are committed by people either on probation or just out of prison on parole? Crime could be reduced 50% by just keeping these people in prison." I can't help but wonder how the squawker proposes to know who will fail and who won't. Maybe I'll "Squawk" and ask him.

One respondent to the change.org post said that "The only thing this campaign delivers well is ignorance and insult." and goes on "Moosejaw's wonderful customer service doesn't make up for the fact they made a huge error of judgment. They are perpetuating stereotypes about inmates and prison life at the expense of actual thought." Very well said I think.

So......back to the question. Is it apathy or ignorance?

The same commentor went on to say, and I paraphrase, "There are many lines of work that will contribute to improving society, cutting recidivism, providing better treatment while men and women are locked up & develop viable, safe alternatives to caging people. Some of this work is educating youth, some of it is educating prisoners and some of it is educating the public."

He goes on to say, "I think part of educating each other is not excusing naive ad campaign's like Moosejaw's because it is perceived to have an element of humor. It also has an element of scorn for the 2.2 million American citizens who are currently incarcerated." No disagreement here.

I would like to suggest that perhaps the apathy of most Americans is due to ignorance. Sadly we have a largely unknowing (Ignorant) and uncaring (Apathy) populace regarding criminal justice issues and reform. The responses and comments that I have referenced offer clear evidence of the unknowing and I will concede that the uncaring is, in all likely hood, because of the unknowing. It is a good thing that most of our citizens never come in contact with our criminal "injustice" system but for those of us who, for whatever reason have, the struggle to educate them and to solicit their assistance in our struggle to make things better continues.