Drug WarRant

Congratulations to Florida for resisting the lure of privatizing its prisons yesterday.

Today, the Florida Senate averted disaster by voting down a proposal to create the largest private prison system in America. The plan would have turned over nearly 30 Florida correctional facilities to private, for-profit companies, which have would run the prisons under contract with the state. […]

The defeat of the privatization bill is a victory for Florida. As Julie Ebenstein, Policy & Advocacy Counsel at the ACLU of Florida, explained shortly after the bill’s defeat: “Florida’s prison system needs reform, but private prisons aren’t reform – they deform the process by linking corporate profit to incarceration. The bottom line is that private prisons make money by keeping people in prison when we should be looking for ways to keep them out in the first place.”

The privatization of prisons is one of the more perverse developments to our criminal justice system in recent years. It makes no long term logical fiscal sense to taxpayers and it’s a disaster in terms of public policy, as it actually creates a fiscal incentive to private companies to lobby for more people to be locked up.

This disturbing article by Chris Kirkham makes it clear: Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for “challenging corrections budgets.” In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.

Did you catch that part? “a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full”

Now if that isn’t a perverse incentive. The state actually entering into an agreement that guarantees a certain prison population. And if prison population falls? Why, I guess they’ll just have to convict more people, sentence them for more years, or pass more criminal laws.

This puts the private prison industry and the states into a joint interest in maintaining prison populations. And that means certain things must be avoided, as Corrections Corporation has made clear…

“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws,” the company’s most recent annual filing noted. “For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

Drug legalization is bad for the business of incarceration.

’bout time.

Levitt Announces US Senate Candidacy

Levitt’s campaign platform advocates policies in the public interest: investment in sustainable energy, infrastructure jobs and education, single payer health care, ending the drug war, and popular policies on energy, war, and finance that PAC-friendly party leaders don’t dare to endorse.

Drug warrior Feinstein is connected to all the big money, so this won’t be an easy one, but it sure is refreshing to see. It’s been a long time since she’s been forced to care about her constituents.

This American Life

Advance the audio to 23:35 for the segment: 21 Chump Street

Last year at three high schools in Palm Beach County, Florida, several young police officers just out of training were sent undercover to pose as students, tasked with making drug arrests. They went to classes, slept through classes, copied other students homework, texted during class, had Facebook accounts, etc. just like all the other students. Only the police knew who they were, not the teachers, or parents, or obviously, the real students.

A kid named Justin – an 18-year-old honor student – was in the last semester of his senior year. And Justin could hardly believe his luck when a very pretty new girl (everyone had noticed her) showed up in not just one, but two of his classes. …

He flirts with her in classes, tells her all his secrets, and even asks her to prom. After some time, this pretty girl asks him if he can get her some pot….

Next thing Justin knows he’s a felon.

… and shoot your dog.

Kerlikowske said one of the key parts of the Obama administration’s strategy to combat drug abuse is to “remove the stigma…and to help people understand you can recover.”

“I think it is what we might call a teachable moment when someone passes – particularly as someone as highly thought of and such an incredible performer as Whitney Houston,” Kerlikowske said. “We can use this as a moment to help people understand. There are millions of Americans that are suffering from this problem…so we can use this as a chance to move forward.”

That’s right, the government is here to remove the stigma and that’s why they’re raiding medical marijuana dispensaries and sending DEA agents to bust down doors, and funding drug wars around the world that end in thousands of deaths.

Yes, death can be a teachable moment, and a time to move forward. But Kerlikowske’s the last one to look to for lessons or direction.

Tony Bennett stands by his call to legalise all drugs

Following last night’s (February 12) Grammy win for his duet with the late Amy Winehouse, ‘Body and Soul’, crooner Tony Bennett has stood by his call to have all drugs legalised.

He made the original comments at Clive Davis’ Saturday night pre-Grammys party in the wake of Whitney Houston’s death. Speaking to Rolling Stone, the 17 time Grammy winner said he had received a “mostly positive” reaction to his comments, adding that legalisation would: “get rid of all the gangsters that make people hide.

Good for Tony.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy something from a real class act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrcxGdyUdk&feature=related

Don’t have time to write about it now (and I will be at some time), but…

Read this: Killing Whitney Houston by Jack Marshall at Ethics Alarms

and this: Don’t let Whitney Houston become the next Len Bias – a response by Mark at Nobody’s Business (along with a comment by Jack there).

Apparently nobody considered that drug smugglers might have access to a jack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGfWgiOSMZQ&feature=player_embedded#!

Via Transform

Guatemala prez to propose legalizing drugs

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said Saturday he will propose legalizing drugs in Central America in an upcoming meeting with the region’s leaders.

Perez Molina said in a radio interview that his proposal would include decriminalizing the transportation of drugs through the area.

“I want to bring this discussion to the table,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated.”

Central America is waking up very forcefully to the fact that they are the unwilling battleground for the war that the U.S. is fighting, and there isn’t enough money coming from the U.S. (or likely to) to make that worthwhile.

It’s like the U.S. went to the rest of America and said “Hey, we’d like to fight a war, but we don’t want to do it at our place. We just vacuumed. OK if we use your living room? We’ll give you a few bucks for the inconvenience.” And it sounded like a good deal at first until their children started dying.

Now, the countries to the south are all starting to get sick and tired of it. Ready to put up lawn signs saying “No drug war here. Try further north.”

Cowboy Cop Makes the Conservative Case for Marijuana Legalization at CPAC

“The reactions have been almost 100 pecent in favor of what I’m doing,” Wooldridge, who claims he hasn’t smoked marijuana in thirty years, tells me. “I’ve had about three people in the last two days out of about 200 who do not like it.” Particularly with this conservative crowd, Wooldridge debates his naysayers in terms of conservative principles. “Personal freedom, personal responsibility, and limited government are what conservatives believe in,” he says. “And that’s what I believe in. And thats what we should do with marijuana policy. I say, ‘Give me a conservative reason to keep it going,’ and they dont have any.”

Howard is a powerful force. His ubiquitous cowboy hat and “Cops say legalize” shirt make a statement everywhere he goes, but he also knows how to make a statement himself that resonates with the listener.

This is something that I have taught in my elevator argument workshops. I was thrilled to have Howard attend one of them, but, of course, he’s been doing this kind of thing for much longer.

It’s about making a quick argument that cuts right to the interests of the person listening and not getting bogged down with arguments that are irrelevant to, or distract from, that single purpose.

We all can take a little bit of Howard and apply it to our activism.

With traffickers having the resources to create tunnels this sophisticated, the government can only hope, at best, to stop a tiny portion of what comes through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G9uBskG574&feature=player_embedded

Of course, there’s always the chance that the authorities will stumble on one of the tunnels.