Grads wind up in jail (news video clip)

[DoNotRefill]

Grads wind up in jail....for CLAPPING at GRADUATION!!!

Apparently making noise was forbidden.

Click the link:
http://www.tampabaylive.com/index.shtml
and on the right hand side in the video box, click on "grads wind up in jail".

[DRoseDARs]

1. What, were these people grown in big green pods?

Did they never experience the teenage years? Yes, the screaming, cheering, and applauding can be over-zealous and thus annoying, BUT SUCK IT UP SOLDIER!!! :eyes:

[NewHampshireDem]

2. Absolutely disgusting ...

No doubt intended to be a racist/classist action to keep a few "uppity" blacks and Latinos in their place.

Clearly that principal values "order" over his students and their families. They need to celebrate, because as was pointed out for many of these kids graduating from high school will be the greatest accomplishment of their lives. It sickens me that for the sake of effeciency and expediency that day was ruined for those families.

[booksenkatz]

3. Oh Christ

I lived in Jacksonville for 7 years. Backwards and racist place (remember what happened there to black voters during the Selection), this story surprises me little. There's a huuuuuuuuuuuuge difference between ejecting someone from the event and JAILING them. And the graduation program stated that no applause, clapping or whistling is allowed at a happy event like this one? May as well put "no applause, clapping or whistling is allowed" on a ticket to a sports event or concert! People are excited, it's only human for them to react accordingly. If they're being disruptive and overly enthusiastic, eject them to the foyer. But JAIL???? I'd love to see if there were any white faces in that jail that night.

Goddamn racists. They can't stand it if some desperate minorities fall into crime, but they can't stand it when minorities attempt to better themselves, either. I wonder why these bigots can't stand to see minorities graduate from high school? Are they suffering from slavery withdrawal? Do they get the shakes from seeing minorities outscore their precious Dakotas and Kaitlyns on the S.A.T.? What's the real problem here?

[Voltaire99]

4. The message is: authoritarianism

The TV station didn't do a very good job, so it's hard to judge what triggered this heavy-handed response. Was it too much to ask the principal how loud and boisterous was too loud and boisterous for his lily white ears?

My own take: the images of that rally look like something Leni Riefenstahl shot. There's a kind of martial aesthetic, surely overt, which is a sign of our times. The emphasis on absolute order (presaged by the menacing printed warning to attendees) speaks to a society that is rigidly embracing ever harsher forms of social control. Note, also, as an aesthetic aside, the enormity of the county prison and its resemblance to a corporate office park: that resemblance is not coincidental.

[tom_paine]

5. Imperial Amerika is a VERY Soviet place now

"Comrades, it is permissible to move around in your seats if your wish to. You may sway to the rhythm in your seats."
--Announcer at a Moscow Concert given by Billy Joel in the early 1980s

[bemildred]

6. Land of the free?

Incarceration rates in George W. Bush's America
and Stalin's USSR:

USSR (1950): 1423 per 100,000
USA (2002): 2298 per 100,000

Incarceration rate for Black men in contemporary
America and in South Africa before ANC rule:

South Africa (1993): 851 per 100,000
USA (2002): 7150 per 100,000

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Fascinating!

Can you give me the sources? I believe you, but I'd like to post them with links.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org
Distrusting the Government Since 1984

[TahitiNut]

9. See...

http://weblog.karelia.com/General/Thoughts_on_South_A.writeback
http://thehomelessguy.net/ ("From the May/June 2004 edition of the Utne Reader")
http://www.utne.com/pub/2004_123/view/11178-1.html
http://captainnormal.typepad.com/captainnormal/2004/04/were_not_in_ver.html


(Google is your friend.)

[bemildred]

10. From the Utne Reader Jan/Feb 2004.

I use a short sidebar piece from the April issue.
That cites:

US Bureau of Justice statistics, Prison Policy Initiative.
"The International Use of Incarceration" by Marc Mauer,
The Sentencing Project.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Hmmm... just did a bit of looking around

Edited for "harshness"

And I find the stats quoted above a lot, but not with sourcing.

I checked the International Centre for Prison Studes (King's College, London) and got a much LOWER number for the US (stats updated 1/04)

http://www.prisonstudies.org/

Country UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Ministry responsible Department of Justice
website url: www.bop.gov
Prison population total

(including pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners) 2,033,331
at 31.12.2002 (Bureau of Justice Statistics - a further 110,284 juveniles were held in custodial institutions at October 2000 and a further 1,912 in 'jails in Indian country' at 30.6.2001)

Prison population rate (per 100,000 of national population) 701
based on an estimated national population of
290.0 million at end of 2002 (U.S. Census Bureau)

Recent prison population trend
(year, prison population total, prison population rate)
1992 1,295,150 (505)
1995 1,585,586 (600)
1998 1,816,931 (669)


So, the 2298 is off by a factor of three. Since this number was way off the mark, I checked the other one at Human Rights Watch.

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/race/pdf/table1.pdf

And lo and behold it is off roughly by a factor of three as well, (2,489, NOT 7,150).

It seems the source is off.<s>

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org
Distrusting the Government Since 1984

[bemildred]

12. The cites are above.

Perhaps you should take it up with them.

I looked at your links, which are interesting, I saved a couple
.pdfs, and I would speculate that the problem lies in the meaning
of "Incarceration rate", as between "currently in jail" and "jailed
at some point".

[Kelvin Mace]

15. Agreed

Personally, I can see how this number might be inflated/deflated depending on your agenda.

A meaningful number to me would be the average population over a one year period since the numbers fluctuate.

According to our friends in London, we are, unfortunately, #1 in the world at the moment.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org
Distrusting the Government Since 1984

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Thanks!

BTW, I didn't mean to slam you on sourcing, as you did have decent sources. However, it appears that whoever wrote for The Utne Reader is off base.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org
Distrusting the Government Since 1984

[bemildred]

14. Utne also is using academic cites.

Pls see #12 for speculation on the source of the descrepancy.

[fortyfeetunder]

8. Bye-bye First Amendment

Graduations are chaotic and messy and boisterous. Shame on the school's administration, and the cops should be ashamed for even taking on something this inane. Guess the potential for monitoring any gathering will be commonplace...bye bye 1st Amendment!

[Just Me]

16. Hmmm,..."zero-tolerance" policies runamuck.

This is just plain ridiculous!!!