"Sesame Street" is no stranger to controversy, whether it was a revealing Katy Perry appearance or mainstreaming same-sex couples, "Sesame Street" has always tried to teach more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Sesame Street characters take on issues of the day.

A “Sesame Street” was character introduced whose father is in jail. “Sesame Street” has always been at the forefront of tackling issues that teach children coping skills beyond learning their ABCs. Two years ago, “Sesame Street” added a character who was living in poverty. The children’s educational show also had characters who were dealing with divorce. The jailed Sesame Street Muppet won’t be on TV though.

“Sesame Street” jail won’t hold the new character, Alex’s father, for long. The new “Sesame Street” character appears in a “Sesame Street” online series called "Little Children, Big Challenges." The new series began in December with an episode that dealt with divorce. “Sesame Street” introduced the new series as a way to help children deal with hard problems that the producers think might be inappropriate for the larger TV audience for preschoolers. The episode is entitled "Incarceration" episode and it was released this month.

Even though crime rates have dropped in America, more people are being jailed. One in 28 children in America currently has a parent behind bars. "Sesame Street" producers wanted them to know that there’s always a place for them on Sesame Street.

We don’t know what Alex’s father did to be incarcerated, whether he committed a serious crime, or was locked up as part of the NYPD's controversial "stop and frisk" initiative, which critics say targets minority groups.

"Sesame Street" wants to help kids deal with having a parent in prison. But Alex Jones, the conspiracy talk show host, says this is all part of a larger conspiracy. He says the episode is a "propaganda program designed to help children accept the fact that daddy is in jail" by advising them to "talk about your feelings, draw a few pictures, write letters to your dad, and toddle off to visit him in jail every now and then and everything will be all rainbows and lollipops." Mike Riggs at Reason pointed out that nearly 7 million people are in jail in America. He writes "congratulations, America, on making it almost normal to have a parent in prison or jail."

In Britain’s The Guardian, Jill Filipovic wrote, “Since 1980, the US prison population has grown by 790 percent. We have the largest prison population of any nation in the history of the world. One in three African-American men will go to jail at some point in his life. Imprisoning that many people, most of them for non-violent offenses, doesn't come cheap, especially when you're paying private contractors. The United States now spends $50 billion on our corrections system every year.”

 by Tony Sokol