Glenn Loury's "A Nation of Jailers" Essay

All people in any society could be divided into two major groups: those, who accept the situation as it is and those, who realize the discrepancies and controversies in the current ethical order of the society and are ready to react to them personally. Glenn Loury is one of the representatives of the second group of individuals. He wrote his famous article A Nation of Jailors in 2009 with the aim to attract the attention of all representatives of the American society to the serious moral challenge of the modern world – mass imprisonment on a racial basis. He makes it evident that this practice is the reflection of the general perception of the poor people in America, especially those, who are of Hispanic or black origins. Glenn Loury’s statement is so strong and appealing thanks to the application of his personal experience and thoughts, his profound involvement in the issue with a deep desire to bring the necessary changes, as well as his strong and perfectly formulated rhetorical strategies.

From the very first lines of the article, the readers are able to experience the author’s personal concern and involvement in the problem of the prevailing number of black men, incarcerated in jails and prisons in his country. He writes: “It is precisely in these terms that I wish to discuss a preeminent moral challenge for our time — that imprisonment on a massive scale has become one of the central aspects of our nation’s social policy toward the poor, powerfully impairing the lives of some of the most marginal of our fellow citizens, especially the poorly educated black and Hispanic men who reside in large numbers in our great urban centers.” (Loury 2009). He lets the readers analyze the roots of this problem, drawing the line between the times of slavery in America and the modern world, where the attitude towards black people has not changed completely. Loury calls the modern American nation – a nation of jailors, this strong pathos of the author is supposed to have a deep emotional impact upon each representative of this nation and make each of them think about this problem as if it is his personal one, instead of distance from it. In addition, he uses the consideration of the possible future, which is meaningful for any American citizen: “We must ask, in light of our history, whether this is the nation we want to be. And, deciding not, we must then try to do something about it.” (Loury 2009).

Loury is not simply a master of persuasion and strong emotional language, rather he is an example of an individual, who is ready not only to admit the current problems and challenges but also to directly participate in their solution. Loury is different in this relationship from other academic colleagues, who after earning their PhDs, wrote for scientific journals. He penetrated into the world of prisons, and jails, he went through his personal religious rebirth and distanced from religious aspects, finally, he entered the world of politics and all this was done with the only aim to be useful for his society and its future.

In order to understand the context of his article, it is necessary to know that Glenn Loury was one of the two children in the family, living on Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s – 60s. The neighborhood, Loury was used to, was rather tough. Still, his parents and most of his relatives were more or less successful, they became lawyers and doctors. At the same time, he had relatives and people, whom he knew closely enough, who became involved in illegal activities. Thus the author was able to experience the conditions of life, which made some poor people work hard in order to earn decent lives and other people turn to violence as means of survival. Even members of his family belonged to both of these categories. It is evident that the emotional appeal of the author was related first of all to his personal involvement in this problem and the questions, which he asks in his article, are his personal questions, which he tries to make important for all members of his society: “Whether or not one agrees, two things should be clear: social scientists can have no answers for the question of what weight to put on a “thug’s,” or his family’s, well-being; and a morally defensible public policy to deal with criminal offenders cannot be promulgated without addressing that question.” (Loury 2009).

Loury was not the first one among activists to treat the problem of racial identity, but he managed to formulate his understanding of this notion clearly, as he was convinced that race is a socially constructed categorization of individuals in society. In other words, it is not natural to separate people on the basis of their skin color or any other appearance differences from each other. In order to make his argumentation stronger, Loury uses also logos, when he provides a number of statistical examples: “60% of black male dropouts born between 1965 and 1969 had spent at least one year in prison before reaching the age of35” and “in 2005 the world had around 9 million prisoners, while two million were prisoners in America. 700 of 100,000 people are prisoners in America, compared to the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia, where “only” 500 people of every 100,000 were prisoners.” (Loury 2009). Statistical data is used by him to support his idea that Americans have become a nation of racist jailers. He lets the readers consider the fact that a lot of money had been spent upon corrections and law enforcement and there are hardly the expected results available. In addition, all individuals, who are concerned about democracy and liberty as the key principles of the developed society, should be concerned about the current statistically proven situation, when the American project of civic inclusion fails and there is a huge difference between theory and reality in American society and American jails. This is a serious argument to consider that there are a lot of countries, with much higher crime rates and at the same time lower incarceration rates in comparison to the United States. Such flexible comparisons reinforce the general rhetoric of the author and have a stronger impact on the intended audience.

Loury used an effective approach, when he appealed to the mentality of the audience via confronting “them” to “us”, as he made evident those gaps, which still exist between white and black people in society and are mostly ignored or viewed superficially by most members of the American citizens. On the one hand, white people want to solve the problem of poor areas and violence there, as it is dangerous for them and their families as well; on the other hand, the strategy, which was chosen for this, in fact, is not effective and only worsens the situation, creating additional conditions of oppression and violent attitudes. Glenn Loury makes the attempt to reveal this “truth” to each member of the American society and make him conscious of his own social responsibility. He wants his country to be transformed from the artificially created “system of suffering” into a country with strong principles of freedom and social order, equality, and justice.

Works cited:

Loury, Glenn. A Nation of Jailers. Cuto Unbound, 2009