Youth Incarceration and the Sitting Liberal
The other day I attended a showing of the documentary Prison Kids, A Crime Against America’s Children. The documentary, centered around the “school to prison pipeline” concept, follows the failed juvenile justice system in Ohio, Louisiana, and Florida. Teenagers, primarily young black males, are spending anywhere from 5 hours to 5 years in juvenile detention centers––which are structured more like prisons––for offenses as minimal as skipping class or staying out late after curfew, causing many of these males and females to fall into a deathly cycle. After leaving these juvenile detention centers and returning to the same environments, they lose their motivation for school and learning, and often end up back where they began. The film also emphasizes the fact that most of the adolescences that enter into these centers have serious cases of PTSD, anxiety, ADHD, or depression–– conditions that not only worsen during incarceration, but continue to go untreated, as these juveniles have a difficult time accessing their necessary medication due to their penal history. Upon watching this documentary, I was stunned by my lack of awareness of a problem as large and seemingly unaddressed as this.
Simply put, I was bothered by the fact that I had become the liberal that I often complain about — one who wants progressive social change, but does nothing to realize or ignite it. As a “sitting liberal,” I had done nothing about the social and economic issues and disparities experienced by so many every day, having never once volunteered for a cause I was interested in, or protested about an act or practice that was unjust.
Thinking about my experience in the auditorium, I was privileged to be where I was, that none of the problems I worried or stressed about directly affected me — but maybe that is what led me to be complacent in the first place. I grew up, and now go to school in, a privileged area, where we always talk about our views and appear “woke,” but take no action. This is not to say that people should attend every protest or go from door to door spreading awareness of the dark path so many minorities go down, but I know that there is simply more to be done.
Usually, as young liberals and conservatives, we grow passionate about specific causes that we believe to be worth the fight. Global warming and climate change: our Earth and its resources are disappearing in front of us. Homelessness: it makes no sense that people in one of the wealthiest countries should be living without a home. Gun control: there should be no reason that a man can walk into a school armed with an assault rifle. Or, abortion: isn’t any life at any age worth saving? We hold issues similar to these close to our hearts, ready to defend our values and morals in regards to these topics at any time, but what have many of us actually done about them?
I have watched documentaries on climate change, gun control, even on hunger in the United States, but I have never felt an ache in my stomach that pushed me to change a problem as strong as the one I experienced the other day. I left the event feeling confused, upset, and frustrated. At once, however, it dawned on me why I was so distraught. I realized that any of those boys interviewed could have easily been my father. He grew up in south central, Los Angeles (think Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube, Boyz in the Hood). He was a “boy from the hood made good.” He made it out, went to good schools, got good jobs in a market despite the cards stacked against him.
He avoided that “downward spiral” or “deathly cycle,” unlike so many black men and women in inner city areas. I am thankful for that, but it still did not ease my conscious to know that so many men will not have the opportunity to pursue the same path. We hold matters like these dear to our hearts, but we go on with our lives, neglecting to address any of it. But maybe, it takes a personal connection to push us towards the direction of change.
I do not necessarily have the solution to my problem, and it is as yet unclear as to how one could end this horrible cycle experienced by so many young people in inner cities and poverty-stricken areas. This is frustrating, to say the least. Understandably, it is unfeasible to leave school and go to New Orleans and volunteer in these areas, or to have, let alone donate, money to foundations that help with these issues. But, after mulling over this for a while, it became clear that simply reading CNN articles or listening to NPR, and then proceeding to complain about “the system,” is not a viable option.
Our place, as active members of society, is to be aware of what’s going on, and to spread this awareness. Although it does not change the circumstances in New Orleans or Cleveland, it does change how those around us think about these matters. Spreading the cause for change is a good start. I will, however, make a pledge to no longer be a “sitting liberal” with a cause and a pit in my stomach. I suggest that all other like-minded liberals do the same.
