The Prison Mirror

THE PRISON MIRROR

Sidelights
GOOD WORKS

The hundred and fifty men who stuffed envelopes with Easter Seals and circular letters this spring might be surprised to learn the extent of interest evidenced throughout the state by newspapers in the various cities.

Nate Shapiro of the Minnesota Society for Crippled Children and Adults put together some of the publicity compiled by the MEA Clipping Bureau and sent them to the Warden, who forwarded them to the MIRROR. The clippings, none less than four column inches, include a feature article by Minneapolis Tribune staff writer Peg Johnson, and picture coverage from the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

This publicity, and television and radio coverage during the project amounts to-if you'll stop and think about it-some impressive votes for the inside.

To a public besieged with accounts of sensational crimes-sometimes involving "ex-convicts" and parolees-this information is important. Because they read so much about crime and criminals, so much surface reporting, prisoners as a group have become a stereotype, and what happens to them is easily shrugged off. The public can not feel sorry for anything that might happen to prisoners because they do not know them, and because the image that the word prisoner elicits is not a sympathetic one.

Parolees who can't get jobs can't get them, not because they would not be able to perform satisfactorily- but because the word prisoner, or ex-convict, or parolee sets up a chain of negative thought in the mind of the potential boss. The boss is afraid to take a chance because he believes that all prisoners are the same-and all the newspaper accounts go streaming through his mind.

We, the men in prison, and those who deal with us intimately, know that we are not the same. But the public does not know it.

We know that we are capable of good works -- prosocial projects, thoughts, ideas, and goals. We know that for obvious reasons the men who make good after prison experiences are not usually publicized, and that therefore the public has a lopsided picture of us.

It is to offset these misconceptions that the MIRROR directs a good portion of its efforts. We heartily disagree with the men who would hide what good the men of this institution do in many different areas. If the men of this institution are capable of good works we feel it our duty to sing loud and long about it.

If this small voice can convince its readers that men in prison are not lost causes, if we can show them that humane instincts, and generosity, and compassion are integral parts of their characters -as they are of all men-we feel it our supreme duty to do so.

While we feel that it is possibly more polite to do good works and keep quiet about it, the MIRROR does not feel that it has the right to be this polite at the expense of the men who have had prison experiences, and who are striving to make good on the outside.