Let's all go to jail...

On Tuesday September 21, 2010…..I went to jail.


Granted it was a class excursion but that really didn’t make it any less sobering. I was privileged enough to be a part of the first group to walk into the secure area right as orange jumpsuits walked on past. Each and every single one of us became the perfect picture of silence in that moment. While most were probably unnerved, and rightfully so, I felt a sudden epiphany of understanding.

While many people say that they “hate cops” or that law enforcement is generally stupid, I really don’t think they know quite what they have to deal with on a daily basis. These men and women go into pods, UNARMED, daily.

It honestly freaks me out to know that once upon a time, my father walked the halls of Avon Park Correctional Institution-a prison, not a jail. Everyone he came into contact with was proven GUILTY, not innocent as Lieutenant Allen explained. Of course this was all before I was born; my father eventually moved to Lakeland and attended USF for a degree in criminal justice. After twenty years in law enforcement however, he decided to take a fraud investigation job with State Farm.

Why?

Because when he would drop my little five year old pony tailed self off at school, he’d immediately try and spot the child molesters among the crowds. He suspected anyone and everyone at all times, he had to. We couldn’t have our phone number in the phone book lest someone know where we live. He would do background checks on my friends parents, a bit of an overkill. But it was the day he yelled at me as if I was a murder suspect and not a nine year old with a severe distaste in math—that he realized something had to change. In dealing with criminals and people who only inflicted pain on others he had built a hard exterior and could only see the darkness in the world.

So he quit his job.

The point I’m trying to make is I get why cops, sheriffs, probation officers and all forms of law enforcement sometimes come off as gruff and hard. Who wouldn’t when you deal with the scum of the earth on a daily basis? Rapists, murders, child molesters—it’d be hard to be happy if they encompassed my daily surroundings.

So as journalists we have to respect the fact that these people face the horrors of life daily, and if we offer them a little kindness they just might go above and beyond to help us get the information we need. If you approach them with a mightier than thou attitude, you’ll only be confirming their assumptions about you as a journalist and the world, and be more than happy to jump down your throat.

So as lame as it sounds, you catch more bees with honey.