The Problems We Solve Are the Problems We Don’t Have to Face
There was an article today in the New York Times titled, “For Ex-Prisoners, ‘Second-Chance’ Jobs Can Be Hard to Come By”, and I think it’s something important enough for us to discuss now, so instead of focusing on billionaires in sinking submarines near the Titanic or on international affairs/wars like in Syria or Ukraine, let’s focus on something a little closer to home, and something that may affect each and everyone of us.
Now, the chances of any of you reading this ending up in jail is pretty slim. Actually, I’m being kind of nice. Statistics from the Brennan Center for Justice indicate that one out of every three adults in America has a prison record. Yeah, I double checked that on another site, and it was correct. Doing some math myself, about a quarter of those arrests were for felonies, which means we have a lot of ex-cons in this country, and if you read this particular article, that’s a real problem.
One of the problems in America is that we’re not a very forgiving country. Oh, we say we are, but we’re not. You spend time in jail, and America kind of turns its back on you, kind of like the Klingons did to Worf when he was banished from Klingon space. Yes, that moment hit me hard, almost as hard as when I realized going for humor in a very serious piece is definitely reading the room wrong. If I was a…
