Jailing kids is a proud American tradition

Thomas Frank gets his Jonathan Swift on regarding the juvenile detention kickback scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

Privatizing bits of the prison industry was a step in the right direction, but what we didn’t have — until recently — were proper instruments for incentivizing the judiciary. That’s what the “kids for cash” judges were apparently experimenting with.

Today the do-gooders revile those efforts as “kickbacks,” but before long we will see them as legitimate tools of justice. Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry, so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government’s justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?

I am rarely as outraged as I was upon hearing about the scandal in Luzerne County; I admire Frank’s ability to channel his outrage into something this brilliant and cutting.

Cities and counties rely on U.S. immigrant detention fees

Municipalities in California and elsewhere—but mostly California—are increasingly tapping a new Federal revenue source.

Roughly two-thirds of the nation’s immigrant detainees are held in local jails, and the payments to cities and counties for housing them have increased as the federal government has cracked down on illegal immigrants with criminal records and outstanding deportation orders.

Washington paid nearly $55.2 million to house [immigrant] detainees at 13 local jails in California in fiscal year 2008, up from $52.6 million the previous year. The U.S. is on track to spend $57 million this year.

As usual, the details of profit-seeking behavior are even more outrageous than the supply-side nonsense:

Santa Ana’s Police Department, for example, expects as much as a 15% budget cut and has had a hiring freeze since October that has resulted in more than 60 sworn and civilian positions remaining vacant, Police Chief Paul Walters said. To offset reductions, Walters plans to convert two multipurpose rooms at the 480-bed jail into dormitory rooms this spring. That will accommodate an additional 32 immigrant detainees, which he expects will bring in $1 million more in revenue each year. He also hopes to get approval to raise the nightly price per detainee from $82 to $87.

“We treat [the jail] as a business,” Walters said. “The cuts could have been much deeper if it weren’t for the ability to raise money there.”

bfunk's bookmarks tagged carceral urbanism

The readings for one of my seminars have recently focused on urban issues surrounding racism and law enforcement. I was happy to find a long list of supplemental material under bfunk’s carceral urbanism tag.

The best two sentences I’ve read for class today highlight the difficulty of finding employment if you’re an ex-offender in the United States:

In another striking example of the creative remaking of worker identities within this racially structured contingent economy, it was reported that some Latino ex-offenders would on occasion pass themselves off as undocumented workers, in order to gain access to the word-of-mouth recruitment channels and labor corners that have been organized around the undocumented population. The kind of work that can be accessed through these means tends to be extremely exploitative and often dangerous, but by the standards of the ex-offender labor market it is comparatively plentiful.

From Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2008). Carceral Chicago: Making the Ex-offender Employability Crisis. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(2), 251-281. [available here behind a paywall]

Camps: A Guide to 21st-Century Space, by Charlie Hailey

The Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Cindy Sheehan’s Camp Casey, the Seeds of Peace Camp, the Post-Katrina Superdome:

The ubiquity and diversity of camps calls for a guidebook. This is what Hailey offers, but it is no ordinary one. Not only does he establish a typology of camps, but he also embeds within his narrative a key to camp ideology. Thus we see how camp spaces are informed by politics and transform the ways we think about and make built environments.

Trawlers are 'destroying history on the seabed'

The chains and cables used by commercial fishing ships are wrecking British shipwrecks.

Investigations using robot submarines have revealed that serious damage has been inflicted on vast numbers of the 32,000 pre-1945 ships whose wrecks litter Britain’s coastal waters. Examples include the recently discovered 18th-century warship HMS Victory, which led Britain’s fleet before Nelson’s flagship of the same name. In 1744, Victory sank with all hands near the Channel Islands. Cannon hauled from the wreck showed it had suffered severe damage from trawlers.

US uses songs to deter immigrants

The US Border Patrol quietly enters the music industry, commissioning a CD of songs reminding people in northern Mexico how dangerous it is to cross the border.

In one, called The Biggest Enemy, a singer called Abelardo from the Mexican state of Michoacan and his cousin Rafael set off to cross the border.

They reach the US but nature defeats them, as they wander the desert without water. Exhausted they lie down with Abelardo waking later to find his cousin dead by his side:

“He decided to come back/ And have a burial in their town/ And as a vow/ He told his dead cousin/ If God will take my life/ That it be in my beloved land.”

You can to listen to two of the songs on The Guardian’s website.

Corrupt U.S. Agents Aid Human Smuggling at Border

High demand and a lack of oversight by the Department of Homeland Security have created the conditions necessary for an underground market on the border in which corrupt U.S. customs and border agents are complicit in the flow of migrants.

Bird strikes, pneumatic tubes, failed states & tweeting MPs

Don’t blame Mother Nature for the crash

[via nautical2k]
In the wake of the US Airways crash-landing on the Hudson, author Bruce Barcott offers one explanation for the increasing rate of airplane–bird strikes:

“We traded the meadowlark for more houses and big-box stores. The gaining species are terrifically adapted to the human landscape. Turkey vultures dine on roadkill. Gulls and pigeons eat our garbage. To a Canada goose, every golf course is a grassy smorgasbord.”

Pneumatic post in Paris

[via cityofsound]
“Introduced to combat the shortcomings of the telegraphic network in Paris, the subterranean Poste Pneumatique (Pneumatic Post) moved written telegraph messages from 1866 until 1984.”

The new ecology of war: An interview with Mike Davis

[via bfunk]
“When one talks about ‘failed states’ one often means ‘failed cities’, such as Gaza, Sadr City or the slums of Port-au-Prince.” — Mike Davis

Tweetminster—Members of Parliament who tweet

[via rodcorp]
A forward-thinking and well-designed public service website promoting increased transparency and more direct communication between elected officials and their constituents.

Cars parked illegally in bike lanes in Washington D.C.

[via cityofsound]
Another public service website, with a searchable map and listings of the top offenders by license plate. Other cities are available.