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Caroline Sikes
Christen Enos
ENGW 1111 SEC 68-Fall 2016
19 September, 2016
So You Want to Convince People How to Repair the Criminal Justice System
With increase in news availability, people are growing more aware of issues than they
could have ever been before. Secret footage of misconduct by police gives physical proof of
mistreatment and the failure of those who are supposed to promote equality, leading o
movements such as Black Lives Matter. All this has brought attention to the matter of treatment
of detainees. People rarely have the chance to really get a closer look at what goes on behind the
barbed wire fences, but reactions to entertainment media such as Orange is the New Black, as
well as statistics of prisoners that return to jail after released shows that people feel it is neither a
fair nor effective system, but do not feel that there is much they can do to help the situation.
Within the Vice article, How to Repair the Criminal Justice System, various authors
express what is wrong with the current prison system and give their own, different advice on how
we can change it. As a series of short pieces of advice, rather than one large article, the reader
can disagree with one authors point of view and skip to the next section, or feeling that one
approach is insufficient, may read on and in the end have read eight different points of view from
eight different authors on both what is wrong with the current system and what can be made right
in the future.

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Vice is an online news source with a majority of young readers, mostly from teens to
thirty five year olds. The article therefore was written for this age group, in hope that when they
have more power they will vote or protest in a way that may change the system for the better.
The articles title would cater to a specific group of readers within the age group who have been
affected by the prison system or sympathize with those who have been, and hope to make
change. Readers knowledge on politics is made clear, as it is stated,
Reform is the new black in American corrections, if you go by the extraordinarily
bipartisan chorus of policymakers, the profusion of justice summit conferences, and the
surge of attention from news media and organized philanthropy.
Terms such as bipartisan, and justice summit show that readers are frequent news readers
who are well versed in modern politics. This is fitting, because the people who are passionate
enough about social change to frequently read Vice are most likely to go on to participate in
politics via voting, protests, and holding positions in government.
While authors use esoteric words such as philanthropy, which may seem technical and
therefore cold, it is also apparent that they strive to appear on the same team as the convicts and
readers. Some writers do this more so than others. For example, one writer, Jonathon Rapping,
writes criminal justice professionals are driven by assumptions about minorities and the poor
and the treatment they deserve that foster a culture of indifference toward these communities,
showing that he does and everyone else should care care more about these highly affected,
oppressed groups. Nancy G. LaVigne, on the other hand, writes in a very straightforward fashion
which might be more affective a style for those moved more by logic than by emotions,
addressing the issue that prisoners are not being properly reformed with the current system.

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Readers are assured of their ability to help by numerous experts, such as a chief justice,
and heads of social responsibility groups. In fact, the entire article uses ethos; rather than even
naming him/herself, the author writes various authors, and has only collected only images and
exact words of people with impressive credentials.
Logos is used as one expert, Bill Keller, tries to convince the reader that we are not being
informed about what is taking place in prison, but it is necessary that we do. To convince us,
Keller quotes Julie Brown of the Miami Herald; Brown says that the state (Florida) has taken to
rejecting public-record requests by pleading either security or privacy." (quoted in Keller). In
this concise line, Keller uses logos by providing the reader with the information that jails are
purposefully and successfully keeping the press out, and the reader is given the opportunity to
make the logical jump from keeping the press out to having secrets. This information on the
specifics of how the press has been successfully keeping the public uninformed shows readers
that it is a real phenomenon, and which specific loopholes must be targeted in order for the truth
to come out, and therefore for prisoners to be treated in a legal and respectful manner.
Brown goes on to say, This means that if an inmate is beaten senseless, and is in a
coma, they do not even contact the family because the inmate's medical condition is private."
Pathos is used here, as explicit detail is given about the horrors that someone may go through,
and the additional mention of family shows the negative effects of our current system on the
outside world, but also humanizes the prisoner and dehumanizes officers in the eyes of the
reader. This is important, as it acknowledges the hardships that prisoners are going through, and
readers attracted by the title will see this as evidence that the writers are on their side of the
debate, advocating for the underdog, just as they are.

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Pathos can also be seen in the photos used. Each segment of the article holds a different
recommendation for how to fix the system, and before each one is a photograph which seems to
encompass this belief and stress the point. The first segment titled, Let the Press In, is preceded
by a picture of a male child behind bars without a shirt on, making it seem a pitiful sight, as
though he is not given the bare minimum, naked and caged like an animal, reminding us of
human rights violations which we choose not to believe occur in the United States until

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confronted by it.

Image 1

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The segment titled, Break the Bail System is preceded by a photograph (Image 2) of
primarily black, male prisoners doing farm labor while supervised by a man on a horse, evoking
images of slavery and white supremacy, which we have fought so hard to overcome. This shows
already, before the segment is started, how wealth and societal class impact your likelihood to be
jailed and be able to pay your way out, which will remind any reader sensitive to equality just
how much there still is to overcome.

Image 2
While awareness is important, this article is more useful than a news article, because one
event may make someone more aware, but this particular article makes people not only feel that
change is necessary, but have a clear vision and new understanding about what exact steps they
can take to change this less-than-admirable aspect of our society, and make a future to have more
hope in.

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Works Cited
"How to Repair the Criminal Justice System | VICE | United States." VICE. VICE Media
LLC, 05 Oct. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2016. <http://www.vice.com/read/mending-our-ways0000775-v22n10>.