By Micki Bare
My children occasionally have teachers that require students to clip and report on current events. What I don’t like about the assignment is that once a week, I have to battle at least one of my kids for the paper at the breakfast table. What I do like about it is that my children actually take a moment to look outside of their teenager bubble and absorb a little bit of life outside of skateboard parks and varsity sports.
Newspapers are mirrors that reflect the personality of our society. Not so much the front page stories that make headlines across the country and all over television, but the little stories tucked inside pages three, four and five. No bold headlines, no continuations on page seven, just quick images of the reality in which we live.
Just last week, I read a story about a man who broke out of prison. In my several decades of life, there have been lots of stories that centered upon just such an event. But the prison break was not the focus of the story.
As I read on, the article mentioned that the escaped prisoner went on to steal some cigarettes from a nearby convenience store. This is not unheard of – a convicted criminal escaping jail only to commit another crime.
Had the story ended there, I would not have given it a second thought; moving on instead to the piece on the next community theater event.
The escaped prisoner who stole cigarettes was caught. The news of the man’s capture gave cause for relief. And this would have been an excellent place to “sequentially and naturally” conclude the story, as my seventh grade English teacher used to say. But there was more.
Apparently, the escaped convict who had just committed yet another crime was caught by the authorities as he was breaking back INTO the jail from which he had escaped.
Now, I’m not sure of main goal of the average prisoner in our overcrowded, underfunded prison system, but I’d always assumed it to be freedom. Once escaped, I can understand the motivation behind the cigarette heist – no money, nowhere to go, just escaped. I’m not a smoker, but had the escapee been one, surely this was the moment he would be seriously jonesing for a ciggie to take the edge off.
What I had trouble wrapping my brain around was the part where our escaped prisoner tried to break back into prison. The other piece that was mind boggling, at least for me, was his inability to be successful on the final leg of his crime spree. It was as if he wanted to not only be in prison, but to insure an extended stay.
A few thoughts crossed my mind as I mulled over this interesting bit of page-four news. Maybe the prison had recently enacted a ban on smoking. Had our prisoner been a longtime smoker faced with a cold turkey end to his habit, his goal could have been to simply score some cigarettes to hold him over through remainder of his sentence.
Smoking bans are gaining popularity and it is hard to quit. I understand that quitting abruptly can make a person literally crazy. Crazy enough to escape back in to prison? Based on my experiences with loved ones who kicked the habit, I believe this to be plausible.
Another possibility could be linked to the economy. Maybe our prisoner found the “outside” and his newly acquired freedom to be more daunting than the prospect of doing time. He could have had an epiphany on his way to the convenience store.
Freshly escaped and enjoying the sun on his face, our criminal could have noticed John and Jane and all their neighbors hanging out on the unemployment line brainstorming ways to make ends meet. He then may have glanced at the neighborhoods and noticed that the landscape was dotted with foreclosure signs. As he made his way down Main Street, half the businesses could have been boarded up with “For Rent or Sale” signs prominently displayed.
Our criminal could be a relatively smart guy. Maybe he earned his GED in the big house and then took a couple of continuing education classes. Putting two and two together, he could have thought, “What chance do I have being free if hard working, model citizens are hard up for jobs, money and housing?”
Our criminal had three squares, health benefits, educational opportunities and an exercise room while incarcerated. Therefore, it is conceivable that he not only wanted back in, but was hoping to get caught to insure a lengthier stay. Why risk getting out before the economy rebounds?
Admittedly, I’m reading a lot into a story that barely took three column inches of space. But if I can write an entire column about a little story that appeared on page four, teens should have no trouble squeezing out a paragraph about the page-one article they clipped before their parents had a chance to glance at the headlines.
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Micki Bare is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau and the Courier-Tribune in Asheboro, N.C., and author of the book, “Relative Expressions.” She lives in Asheboro with her husband and three children. Her e-mail address is mickibare@inspiredscribe.com.
