Part Two

"Lockdown" has a very vivid dystopian society. Society has lost patience with teen violence and decided to take a direct approach. Teens convicted of a crime, justly or unjustly, are sent to the Furnace Penitentiary for life. There, children live out a life of fear as they are faced with the horrors of the Furnace. Children in their teen years are constantly in fear of the potential threat of being put in the Furnace. All the kids who are imprisoned in the Furnace live in constant fear of death which is a normal thing for those who have lived in the Furnace long enough.


Lockdown focuses on the social injustice surrounding the treatment of children, in particular those children that are innocent. The author is trying to make the reader aware that even though children mess up, they are still growing and developing, and that hiding problems is not how to fix them. With proper attention and care, children can grow into responsible adults. Even though Alex did commit his share of crimes, he was still treated unjustly. The author's use of the harsh conditions of the Furnace do not match the crimes of any human being. It is these conditions that make us sympathetic to Alex and his inmates in the Furnace with him.


The social injustices described in Lockdown are deliberately exaggerated to seem much worse than the experiences of the typical reader. There certainly are injustices all over the world, and even today, children suffer everything, from simple poverty to child slavery. There are a number of ways that the Furnace in Lockdown was unjust.  Children who commit crimes suffer consequences that are less severe than what an adult would face, and are generally given a chance to get a fresh start when they grow up.  This was not the case in Lockdown. In juvenile detention centres, and even in adult prisons, people are are not kept for life the way they were in Lockdown.  Also, prisoners can get a chance for early release if they are well behaved, where there was no such chance in Lockdown, so the prisoners had no hope and no reason to behave.  Prisoners are given a chance to get an education and learn skills so that when they get out, they can find a way to make a living in society.  In Lockdown, the prisoners were being thrown away forever, and told "the outside world, you are already dead", which is unjust because we believe that everyone can learn from their mistakes if given a second chance.  In Lockdown, even though Alex was guilty of a crime, he did not deserve his punishment, and did not get a fair trial.  Having a fair trial is an important part of social justice.  Each of these injustices can happen in our world if we don't pay attention to our legal rights.


In the dystopian society the author created, the Furnace was designed to solve a specific problem and make people safe. Not only did this not fix the problem, it made it worse. Locking people up and throwing away the key is not the answer to crime. I think the author effectively delivers this message because this novel tackles a real world issue.