Marc Maurer’s piece in The Huffington Post on May 10 brings to light the harm of stereotyping prisoners. Maurer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, has dedicated his life advocating for criminal justice reform. He is serious when it comes to educating the public about America’s penchant for locking up millions of citizens.
Maurer took offense to a Mike’s Hard Lemonade commercial that shows a scary looking inmate, who gives the impression that he has malice on his mind, tunneling his way his way out of prison and popping up through a hole in the ground at a golf course. The visual imagery of an escaped convict showing up in one’s (most likely suburban) golf course (neighborhood) has dark undertones.
Prisoners, and their efforts to escape, seem to be a hit with companies wanting to promote their products. Another recent commercial depicts two hardened-looking male prisoners once again digging a tunnel to freedom, (as if that is the only way out of prison) only to have them return back to prison after life on the “outside” proves to be too harsh. For those who have been incarcerated, life on the outside of prison walls is something dreamed about, hoped for, and coveted; it is not something to turn one’s back on.
Of course, the multi-million dollar ad campaigns that are created to help us part with our hard earned money rarely depict reality. Smoke and mirrors, smiles and sunshine, yummy goodness—all projected at us to make us believe that if we buy a product our lives will be transformed. At the other end of the spectrum, depictions of an advertising world’s vision of evil can bring fear and mistrust into our hearts, especially when we are inundated with stereotypical images of tough looking, gruff sounding prisoners. Maurer argues that over 2.3 million Americans are not cartoonish oafs unworthy of our attention, or that the majority of prisoners are not about to escape and cause havoc in our lives. Maurer’s article, which can be read by clicking on the link below, decries how “sensationalist imagery” promotes the policy that helped America earn the shameful distinction of having five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners.
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