In here, jail, you have a lot of time to think. A lot of time to consider life’s options and what lies ahead. On the opposite end of that spectrum, you have too much time to think about the what ifs. What if I had done this? What if I had said that. We all know the game. Unfortunately, we don’t always read the instructions. The fine print is what always gets us. And let’s be real, that’s why it’s the fine print—it’s designed to get us.
This article, being my final from inside the walls of 940, has not been easy to write. It’s been six weeks since I wrote the last article and since then, noteworthy holidays have come and passed—Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day—and yet, as creative as I believe I am, I have struggled to come up with a topic. And maybe that’s just it. Maybe jail has nothing to offer that holds your thought.
We all love an underdog. Hollywood has certainly capitalized on such stories. In fact, nearly every movie we see is based on that very same premise. For example, Bad News Bears. A coach takes a bunch of misfits and turns them into a championship baseball team. Remember the Titans, a true story of integration in the ’60s that takes a team full of hate and tragedy and gives them hope. The coach had faith, he believed in them and the results will bring tears to your eyes. The movie Major League. The list goes on and on.
Yet all of them have the same thing in common. They all have one exceptional person believing in a group of down-on-their-luck misfits who are simply in need of direction. Talented people with no stage to perform on . . . our jail is full of them. Robert Arnold, be exceptional. Believe in them. Build them that stage, you have the power to do so.
Please do not quote me on this, my resources are limited, but I believe that the estimated savings by cutting out condiments from the inmates’ meals, along with sugar from the tea, buns, eggs, bacon, etc., have totaled an estimated $105,000. This, of course, does not include the savings in cutting back from twice a week to once a week on shaving razors. Nor does it include any other resourceful money-saving angles that have been taken. All of that is to say, invest just half of that back into the inmates. Start a new incentive program. Help to somehow change for the positive a few lives a year. It is possible. Should some suggestions be needed, I have a few. You know where to find me (lol).
Contrary to the stigma, not all inmates are evil, or even bad. Mere societal faux pas, of which we are all guilty, have happened to create wrinkles in our lives. The proverbial meatball in the lap on a first date. No real harm done.
Yes, jail is meant to deter crime. And in my opinion, the line between what is criminal and what is faux pas has become blurred by politics and greed. Jail now, if it ever was, is no longer an institution of social reform or rehabilitation. Instead, jail has become a very large industry. A Fortune 500 company that most—myself included—could not begin to fathom. Allow me just that one soapbox, that one belief. An empirical belief, which I challenge anyone to debunk or prove infallible.
Further, I issue a challenge to our new sheriff, not a challenge of testosterone, but a challenge to better the system. Now that the passing of the guard has been official for several months, I challenge the young sheriff to take time and think about his options. Our previous sheriff, Truman Jones, took a challenge and met it head on. Truman kept an impressively low crime rate in a critical period of growth for our county, a population boom.
So Sheriff Arnold, what lies ahead? Challenge yourself so that when you do look back you don’t ever have to say “What if?” Take your time and read the instructions, the fine print of what defines a man and his career.
I now pass the pen so you can write the ending. Best wishes.
