Jails started the erasure of the stereotypical image of doing time. They no longer clothe criminals in horizontal black and white striped garb, complete with a number. For some reason they chose a new image. That new image was of the criminal doing time in a one coloured jump suit.
Wherefore art thou now, Hamburgler? If you put on a jump suit, perhaps people might mistake you for a baby in a onesie.
The erosion of this image continued in the last few years. Fashion has not only dared to bring back black and white stripes, it has dared to bring them back in both slimming vertical stripes as well as the formerly prison defining horizontal stripes.
And to make matters worse, these people with the fashionable horizontal stripes are just as law abiding as you or I. There is no known link between this new fashion and crime.
How are cartoonists the world over going to illustrate the act of being in jail by a single defining image? Perhaps they could sell it by showing someone literally behind bars. But this limits the image so much.
More importantly, how is multi millionaire furniture salesman and former Toronto mayor, Mel Lastman going to sell his Bad Boy brand? How will people tell in an instant the character is a bad boy if not for the horizontal stripes? There is of course the possibility that everyone knows Lastman was a Toronto mayor and that might be enough to let everyone know he is a bad boy.
