The New York Times editorial contrasts the clash of two sacred cows, children and unions. As hard as it may be to imagine, the most significant force against the reform of failed criminal justice programs have been the unions, and the politicians who depend on them for financing, representing prison guards.
It was a brilliant idea to build prisons in depressed upstate locations, where there was land aplenty and rampant unemployment. It took the bad guys away from the masses, and made for a pretty good local economy when people needed it. But along the way, people forget that it wasn’t about their having jobs, but about the people they were holding. These people included children.
A report by a task force appointed by Gov. David Paterson describes a failing system that damages young people, fails to curb recidivism and eats up millions of tax dollars. Children should be confined only when they present a clear threat to public safety. But the most recent statistics show that 53 percent of the youths admitted to New York’s institutional facilities were placed there for minor nonviolent infractions.The reports showed that these children were in need of mental health services and education, but they were unable to get the help they needed within their communities because all the cash flowed upstate to prisons. If you’ve got prisons, you need to fill them up or all that money is wasted. No one likes to see money wasted.
Not surprisingly, these institutions do a terrible job of rehabilitation. According to a study of children released from custody between 1991 and 1995, 89 percent of the boys and 81 percent of the girls were eventually rearrested. New York’s facilities are so disastrous and inhumane that state officials recently asked the courts to refrain from sending children to them, except in cases in which they presented a clear danger to the public.
In the face of these reports, the unions are up in arms. The upstate politicians are up in arms too, as they don’t want to lose their financing or invoke the wrath of their constituents who will lose their jobs. Frankly, it’s understandable. It’s just not acceptable.
At the extreme end, we have the two Pennsylvania judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, who were placing kids in confinement for a kickback. Trading off the lives of children for upstate jobs isn’t entirely different, except that the cash flow is spread out a little broader and it’s done in the name of government.
There are some who have given up hope on children, who buy into the child-predator myth and believe that kids are beyond redemption. If so, then prison is the way to go, keep those nasty children away from good, law-abiding folk. But this clearly doesn’t apply to a child who presents no threat of harm to anyone. And even the ones who do are still children. Children, for crying out loud. No one is arguing that they don’t do harm and aren’t in need of incarceration at times, but that they are not unsalvageable and beyond help.
While there may be argument about what to do with the most violent, the most dangerous, there should be no argument that the vast majority of children who find themselves in some form of juvenile justice scrutiny have the capacity to be helped and to go on to lead happy, productive lives. Unless we warehouse them in upstate prisons, where all hope is lost and no help is found, so that union members can continue to have gainful employment.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate that prison guards have families and children of their own to support. It’s not that I take lightly the loss of jobs in otherwise depressed counties. It’s not that these people don’t have legitimate needs of their own. But when the choice is between children and unions, the children must win out. Children cannot be traded for jobs. Sorry, unions. Sorry, prison guards.
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You’re dead-on here, Scott. It doesn’t get much more selfish and despicable than lobbying to have more people locked in cages so that you can get paid to guard the cages. It’s hard to see any moral difference between this and human trafficking.
Depressed upstate areas? Come on. They just opened a call center for debt collectors a few miles from here. Think of the jobs.
And well, yeah, prisons. We have a few.
You know if you step back a little you can see these things don’t help overall. Places just empty out of legitimate businesses and people. Parents tell their children to move away to some place sunnier with a better environment.
That’s what I tell my kids.
OMG, you agree with me? Where have I gone wrong?
Where to start, where to start…
“As hard as it may be to imagine, the most significant force against the reform of failed criminal justice programs have been the unions”
Having worked on the front lines of crimjust political reform, that’s not hard to imagine at all. It’s not just guards, either. Police unions are even more active opponents of reform, in my experience.
The juvie system all but a few states is really messed up – if you didn’t see the new report on sexual abuse in juvie lockups, it contains some pretty startling data.
If we want to reduce crime, prisons need to be torn down. Prisons develop crimals. Placing children in prison increases crime. In every state where child imprisonement has increased, the result has been increased crime. So not only is it immoral and a disgrace for NY and other states who imprison their children, it increases crime.
10 Things I Think I Think: Politics
Gallup: “The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup’s initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.” Personally, I doubt whether 1 in 100 of the self-identified conservatives could name more than 1 in 10 of The Conservative Principles. But I’m feeling grumpy today. I still think Bush 43 pissed away the conservative moment. But the great thing about time, is that there’s always a new moment right around the corner. Entrusting to the economy…
It’s no surprise to me either, this problem having long been known within people engaged in all sides of the criminal justice system, but I suspect that many people who are unfamiliar with the situation will find it shocking how big a role unions, guard, police, etc., play in substantive lawmaking when it collaterally impacts their livelihood.