THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409280152
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Picture this: An inmate of the Western Tidewater Regional Jail ignores every rule, threatens to harm fellow-prisoners and shouts obscenities at jailers. He's put into an isolation cell - solitary confinement, it used to be called - where he reclines and watches cable TV.
Some punishment, huh? No wonder so many of those people do bad things again and land back in jail. They're sent to motels, not jails. Punishment? It's a vacation!
By now, I hope you've begun to figure out that most of what you've read so far is a bunch of hooey. In the minds of some people, though, it's all real.
I heard those very details - the jail as a motel, cable TV in isolation - at a soccer game Saturday, from someone who should have known better. Yet he offered them as facts, and people in his immediate company seemed to accept them as further evidence that criminals are coddled, and that's the main reason crime is so rampant.
The simplicity may be appealing, but it also overlooks some major details - truth being foremost. Maybe the new jail's appearance causes some people heartburn. It is attractive outside, stunning in comparison to the outdated lockup downtown. But the inside is a jail, nothing akin to a motel.
Here's the deal with cable television: The jail subscribes to basic service. There are no televisions in cells, but each section has one. Generally, inmates may watch from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., but sections that excel in daily inspections may earn two extra hours, starting at 11 a.m.
As for isolation cells, there are no televisions. Inmates may have one book, nothing else. Their only contact is with jail officers and medical personnel.
That may sound like a vacation in today's stressed-out world, but it surely loses even its limited appeal when you consider that it's imposed.
Consider, too, having to endure up to nine hours of television a day. A steady diet of talk shows featuring husbands who stole their wives' sister's spiked heels and wore them to work, rich women who shoplift for fun and teenagers claiming to occupy the bodies of medieval warlords would drive some of us to wish for a little isolation.
Conversations like the one overheard Saturday disturb me. The speaker holds a position of influence, and most within earshot didn't question his facts - not when he spoke with such convincing authority.
His audience was right to be concerned about the crime rate - it threatens our freedom from fear - and about recidivism, having criminals serve a little time in jail, get out, commit more crime, then start all over again. However, his eager listeners need to ask questions about causes much deeper than attractive jails and television privileges and about solutions that just might sound much more effective and economical than they really would be.
Unfortunately, the speaker is more likely to go on with his misguided speech, and his listeners are more likely to retain their off-base views. It's much easier to solve major social problems with simplistic answers between glances at a soccer game than to bother with details that just might challenge our tidy opinions.
By the way, that's as true of public schools as jails. The strongest opinions, it seems to me, are held by people who know about as much about public schools as I know about the soil on Mars.
They don't understand the difference between selective admission and education for all, the impact of parental involvement and other advantages of smaller settings. Yet they rave about public schools' deficiencies.
Public schools have weaknesses, but they will not be resolved by these ``experts,'' any more than Saturday's speaker will help fix the ills of the criminal-justice system.
Comment? Call 446-2494. by CNB