LIFESTYLE
Caring is Crucial, but Why is it so Difficult?
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words by liam schwartz
Here are some sickening statistics that most people cannot fathom: The population of those in prison and jail would be the fourth largest city in America; over two-thirds of people who leave prison will return; the United States makes up about 5% of the world’s population but holds 21% of the world’s prisoners; and a massive drop in the crime rate did not slow the pace of mass incarceration. America is truly an incarceration nation, and yet many people go about their day-to-day lives unaware of the catastrophic problems that occur in our prisons and jails every day. Why is this? Why have we left this enormous issue out of the common discourse? When one in four Americans have a criminal record, how can so many individuals choose to ignore this glaring issue until the system directly affects them? And why should I care? Hopefully, one day in the future, I will know the answer to that question.
As a heterosexual, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied Christian male in the upper-middle class with a “traditional” family, I arguably have one of the most privileged positions in society. I grew up in a largely white suburb in Wisconsin and never really had to think about race on a critical level. I just knew that for a career, I wanted to move closer to eliminating mass incarceration in the US and improving the lives of those incarcerated. I did not know what this meant or how it would play out. I just wanted to focus on a solution to a problem that I saw for no sound reason.
22 | UNTOLD
America is tr
I wasn’t always aware of the problems with our criminal justice system. It wasn’t until I had to do a poetry presentation in Mrs. Behrend’s Advanced Placement Literature class during my senior year of high school when I was 18 years old. In this assignment, we chose a poem and had to analyze it and connect it to other works of literature that we covered in the class. My initial thought was to focus on a soccer poem. However, after further insight, I based my topic on racial injustice using the poem “If We Must Die”, by Claude McKay. Although this poem doesn’t have a direct connection to the criminal justice system, the Black author examines what it means to be Black in a society where there is a clear advantage to being White. This disparity, of course, is painfully clear when inspecting the criminal justice system. Eventually, after much work, I thought I was ready for a conference with Mrs. Behrend to look for ways to improve it and ultimately get the okay to sign up for a presentation date. I couldn’t have been more naïve. In our conference, Mrs. Behrend asked me, “Why do you care so much about this problem that will probably never affect you?” I panicked because I did not know how to answer. It was at that moment that I realized I didn’t have an answer to the question that I had so hypocritically asked of others from my self-righteous high horse.
I didn’t have an answer to the question that I had so hypocritically asked of others from my self-righteous high horse.
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