So,  TV is Our Treatment for Criminal Behavior?

  Some day, I should visit our jails, to see if the prisoner sits around and watches TV all day. Well, maybe calling them and asking would do.
   At any rate, before the age of television, the prisoner didn't have such an influence. I can't help but wonder if he was the better for it. I wonder if with the invention of the TV, a harmful influence was unleashed upon the prisoner.
   Well, I do confess, I am one of those who considers the violence and the sexuality and the values portrayed on television to be a negative influence on anyone. But, if they are, I ask, why do we feed the prisoner on little else. If a man is the sum of the things he consumes, in terms of what he feeds his mind, why would we let the TV be the chief influence our inmates have?
   I will confess, I do not know how many prisons let TV be the chief way the convict passes his time, but I do wonder how many allow it to be so. And, yes, I really do shake my head at how wrongheaded we are to go about correcting the criminal this way. Our idea for making things better is to have them sit idly, doing little but watching television all the day long? We really have progressed a long way in treating criminal behavior. If this is what our criminal justice system has come to, I really don't think we are giving much thought to what treatments are best to counter criminal behavior.