On February 21, 2007, Rodney White stepped back into freedom after 15 years and six months in a federal prison in Richmond, Virginia. He went back to school and earned a degree in Paralegal Studies, and began applying for jobs. However, three of the companies he applied to refused to even let him interview, because he checked the box that asked if he was ever convicted for a crime. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne presents Hester Prynne, a character that is heavily judged and discriminated because of one mistake in the past. However, this happened around 1650. Does the so called “scarlet letter” still apply to a certain group of people today? The answer is a resounding yes; ex-convicts are the wearers of the modern day scarlet letter.
Perhaps the greatest parallel between society in the 1650s and 2016 is the burden of a single mother convicted of a crime. Hester was a single mother convicted of adultery, and the burdens she had to face in raising her child were innumerable. At one point, the governor wanted to take Pearl away from Hester just because he thought Hester would be a bad influence on her. Luckily, and with a bit of convincing from Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester was able to keep her child. But many ex-convicts can’t say the same. Ex-convicts are generally unable to find housing, rejected from colleges, and denied job opportunities just because of one mistake int eh past. Additionally, The Adoption and Safe Families Act was passed in 1997 to allow for children of incarcerated parents to be adopted rather than put in foster homes. However, many ex-convicts are unable to regain the rights to their biological child. For that reason, many incarcerated single mothers place their children in dangerous foster homes just to avoid the risk of losing custody once their sentence is over. For example, one single mother in Los Angeles was sentenced for armed robbery, but it turned out that the items she stole were formula mix and diapers for her three-month old baby. The fact that she would be arrested and be in jail for up to five years because she was trying to take care of her baby is one that shows ex-convicts are the bearers of today’s scarlet letter, as one bad deed in the past led to the lifetime of sorrow that is losing a child.
Though the culture has changed from 1650 to 2016, moral judgement has not budged an inch. Ex-convicts are branded by their past behaviors, and for that reason are unable to find housing, education, employment, and take care of their own children. But to what avail? The system just forces ex-convicts into a deeper life of crime, because they lose the opportunity to make a good life for themselves and lose the people they love the most. Their communities don’t treat them with respect, they feel as though they have lost their dignity, and they have no way to climb up the social ranks. The criminal justice system in the United States is something that absolutely has to change, as they are the wearers of 2016’s scarlet letter, and we hope they can remove that awful mark as fast as possible.
