Slog Comments
Protesters Are Lying Down in Third Avenue to Oppose New Youth Jail
1
Even more boneheaded than usual. Yes, let's make life even shittier for kids who get caught up in the juvenile justice system. This is to HELP THEM, you stupid, precious privileged fucks.
2
"Abolish jails!"
"What do we do with violent, repeat offenders?"
"Well, I mean, it is not like we have any solutions, I was just saying."
"What do we do with violent, repeat offenders?"
"Well, I mean, it is not like we have any solutions, I was just saying."
3
Dominic,
This is dangerous and disruptive. Plus, the demand will be impossible to meet. They shall be arrested and probably, should they be "youth" end up in the place that needs replacing.
The abolition of all jails and prisons is untenable. It was pointed out "what about violent offenders"?
This is dangerous and disruptive. Plus, the demand will be impossible to meet. They shall be arrested and probably, should they be "youth" end up in the place that needs replacing.
The abolition of all jails and prisons is untenable. It was pointed out "what about violent offenders"?
5
Hey,if we cancelled the unaffordable SR-99 Billionaires Tunnel and just rebuilt the Viaduct, we'd have enough money to pay for a new Jail too.
But, not both a Ten Dollar One Way Tolled Tunnel and a Jail.
Choices.
Well?
But, not both a Ten Dollar One Way Tolled Tunnel and a Jail.
Choices.
Well?
7
What an admission "juvenile offenders are disproportionately non-white" and to think that White folk will have to pay for the new jail. I'd be mad too. Let the "nonwhite" people pay for the services their kids incur.
9
Abolish jails? Fuck me how the mighty have fallen. Time to Occupy Planet Earth loonies, you're the new 1%
10
Wow. I love the attitude of, "We have no solutions, only demands". Stellar work people, you'll really stick it to the man that way. Yeeeeah.
11
Thank you, Dom, for keeping attention on the toxic shithole I work in. I'm too much a cynic to believe that the voters of King County will actually approve a levy to build something desperately needed...but maybe if The Stranger keeps bringing up the subject, it'll make its way into a few people's heads.
12
But...but...if we do away with public flogging what will keep the criminals from engaging in criminality???
13
Apparently, It's just like how we should keep Yesler Terrace. The poor don't deserve modern housing. It's better to keep them in a dilapitated "garden community" comprised of 1930's era housing with only 1970's era baseboard heat to keep them warm in the winter.
Lead paint, substandard insulation, rotting sewer lines, inadequate wiring. It's just what happens when things get old.
Lead paint, substandard insulation, rotting sewer lines, inadequate wiring. It's just what happens when things get old.
14
In before someone mentions that all the negative press is because of double agents/Trotskyites/agent provacateurs.
This is how you kill a movement, guys, and it's not the cops doing the killing.
This is how you kill a movement, guys, and it's not the cops doing the killing.
15
To answer the question of whether any of the protesters will be visiting a prison soon: no. They may be visiting a jail though. There is a difference.
16
Although im surprised this isn't happening along Broadway, or Pine street. What doesn't surprise me is how they decided to block traffic and let me guess, are actively taunting the police.
17
@16 - When they came to the YSC, they gathered out on the street corner and didn't come make trouble by the entrance. When they left, it was about 30 people, accompanied by like 15 bike cops.
18
I'm basically sympathetic to the Occupy movement, but I have to admit that this is extremely misguided. Fight to transform the system? Absolutely. "Work to reform the prison industrial complex? Hell yes. But take to the streets to maintain sub-human conditions for the troubled young people in the detention center who may have one last chance for a decent adult life? I'm afraid you've totally lost me there.
19
Remember the excited winter coverage of how people inspired by Occupy were carefully laying their plans to enjoy a springtime resurgence? And then spring came, and meh?
So spring dragged on into summer, and all we get are fringies floating dollar bills onto the street like last week. And now this, making common cause with right-wing opponents of the levy who hate how it will improve the quality of justice on offer to youth, make unjust incarceration less likely, and make serving time less of a shitty life-ruining experience.
So spring dragged on into summer, and all we get are fringies floating dollar bills onto the street like last week. And now this, making common cause with right-wing opponents of the levy who hate how it will improve the quality of justice on offer to youth, make unjust incarceration less likely, and make serving time less of a shitty life-ruining experience.
20
It's a good thing I'm not driving downtown today, or I would be heading for one of those prisons, after running over the extremely duff indeed Mr. Badgley and crushing his empty skull with my car tires.
21
@17 "When they came to the YSC, they gathered out on the street corner and didn't come make trouble by the entrance"
If by YSC you mean MicCheckWallStreet, which is an offshoot of OWS, yes they have this habbit of staying on the sidewalk and respecting both police and property.
If by YSC you mean MicCheckWallStreet, which is an offshoot of OWS, yes they have this habbit of staying on the sidewalk and respecting both police and property.
22
No. I mean "Youth Service Center." That's the real name of the "toxic, dilapidated courthouse and detention center" in question. Apologies for the jargon.
And I don't know what relationship this particular protest group may have to OWS, but they're called Black Orchid Collective.
And I don't know what relationship this particular protest group may have to OWS, but they're called Black Orchid Collective.
23
@19. Yes, I recall how OWS was going to change the world and be a major force in the 2012 election: as something the candidates would have to talk about. And remember how anyone being critical of Occupy was just bitch slapped on Slog? Yeah, that all turned out to be a joke we don't talk about anymore.
28
Read this article:
Coming Soon to the Central District... Kiddie Jail Kondos!
We firmly believe that the well-being of our children and families requires this action.
- King County Superior Court Presiding Judge Richard McDermott
King County representatives have a great new plan to fix the decrepit, foul-smelling Youth Services Center*: bulldoze it, rebuild it with new and improved “urban design,” and add some condos. Problem solved!
To pay for this, County leaders are currently working to get a $200 million property tax levy on the primary August ballot. If it passes, home-owners will be expected to pay 7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000, for 9 years.
According to The Seattle Times, this is how they intend to spend that heaping pile of cash: “The county would move some buildings back from their current locations near street fronts and concentrate them closer to the center of the campus. County officials would then sell to developers nearly 3 acres at three corners of the property. The idea is that developers would pay about $16 million for the land, which would help to offset construction costs and enliven the area with retail and residential projects.”
The history of development in Seattle shows exactly what “enlivening an area with retail and residential projects” means: condos, cupcakes, and cafes. And more police trolling the streets for petty “quality of life” crimes like graffiti and pissing in alleys. There couldn’t be a more perfect example to show how the justice system, capitalism, racism, and gentrification are interconnected. While kids endlessly cycle in and out of developer-subsidized jail cells, wealthy condo-dwellers will be enjoying the view from their rooftop sun decks.
Proponents are attempting to sell the plan by appealing to voters’ empathy for the poor kids locked up in a such a run-down facility. Cienna Madrid, writing for The Stranger, recently advised voters to “approve the levy—the facilities are about as safe for kids as an electric eel fishery. In some hallways, it perpetually smells as if someone took a shit in their hands and then clapped.” She goes on to quote Judge Helen L. Halpert saying, “It’s filthy, it’s decaying, and it sends an evil message to the primarily poor people who we see: ‘You just don’t matter.’”
According to these fools, imprisoning children under such shitty conditions shows them that society doesn’t really care about them. Well, news flash, “society” doesn’t really care about them. Halpert’s idiotic logic contends that a fancy new facility (no doubt a much more secure, higher capacity facility) with upscale condos and shops next door will somehow change this.
Um, what the fuck?
Obviously it is horrible to imprison children and teens in a rickety old building. But it’s just as disgusting to imprison young people in a new building with an aesthetically pleasing urban design. The problem is incarceration, period. Oh yeah, and rampant racism, a completely fucked economic system, psychotic cops, politicians... One could go on and on.
To anyone who’s been paying attention, it’s no secret that the US criminal justice system is fundamentally racist and operates in accordance with the needs of capitalism. The statistics are easy to find. There are 2.3 million people locked up in cages throughout this country. Judge Halpert admits that most of them are poor. With only 5% of the world’s population, the US boasts a full quarter of the world’s prison population. US prisoners are disproportionately black and Latino, and the prison population has sky-rocketed over the past thirty years largely due to the War on Drugs.
These statistics are alarming, but they seem to suggest that if the excesses of the justice system were scaled back, then the basic functioning of the state’s court and corrections apparatus would still be desirable. This analysis ignores that the primary purpose of laws, courts, and prisons is SOCIAL CONTROL and not the prevention of things like interpersonal violence and drug addiction.
Prison captures surplus populations—the poor and the restless—that might otherwise create real problems for the smooth functioning of capitalism. Meanwhile, the cage extends beyond the razor wire in the form of surveillance, even working its way into our minds as we police ourselves and each other. Above all, prison serves as a looming warning for any who wish to destroy this cold and disturbing reality.
The cops and courts have shown themselves to be perfectly incapable of stemming the tide of so-called crime. This is because it is this sick culture and its laws that create and construct the criminal. On the one hand, pervasive alienation reproduces the abusive sociopathy of capitalism in individuals. Television, pop songs, and our own experiences of being treated as worthless and replaceable teach us to regard each other as objects be be used and thrown away. This results in abusive behavior, in rape, in pointless murder. On the other hand, capitalism creates the economic and social conditions—poverty, necessity, vapid materialism—that fuel theft and the drug market. The state, in turn, criminalizes the things the excluded do to survive.
As long survival is tied to money, as long as there are rich and poor, as long as land is property, there will be criminals. As always, some will choose their targets wisely from the long list of individuals and institutions that profit from our exploitation and the destruction of the natural world. Others will continue to prey on people not so different from themselves. Prison has not and will never change this. The only way to stop broke, broken people from cannibalizing each other is to destroy the system that breaks us and to create new, nourishing worlds. That, not coincidentally, is also illegal.
For all of these reasons, we reject the County’s plans to “fix” the Youth Services Center. The new complex might make liberals sleep a little easier, but it will still function as a node in the network of capitalist domination. That it will be integrated with upscale gentrification only makes it that much more repulsive and offensive to all those who love and struggle for freedom.
The only way to fix the Youth Services Center is to burn it—and every other exploitative institution—to the ground.
*************
*The King County Youth Service Center houses the Juvenile Detention Center, Juvenile Court and Juvenile Court Services. It is located at 1211 East Alder Ave in the Central District.
More...
Coming Soon to the Central District... Kiddie Jail Kondos!
We firmly believe that the well-being of our children and families requires this action.
- King County Superior Court Presiding Judge Richard McDermott
King County representatives have a great new plan to fix the decrepit, foul-smelling Youth Services Center*: bulldoze it, rebuild it with new and improved “urban design,” and add some condos. Problem solved!
To pay for this, County leaders are currently working to get a $200 million property tax levy on the primary August ballot. If it passes, home-owners will be expected to pay 7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000, for 9 years.
According to The Seattle Times, this is how they intend to spend that heaping pile of cash: “The county would move some buildings back from their current locations near street fronts and concentrate them closer to the center of the campus. County officials would then sell to developers nearly 3 acres at three corners of the property. The idea is that developers would pay about $16 million for the land, which would help to offset construction costs and enliven the area with retail and residential projects.”
The history of development in Seattle shows exactly what “enlivening an area with retail and residential projects” means: condos, cupcakes, and cafes. And more police trolling the streets for petty “quality of life” crimes like graffiti and pissing in alleys. There couldn’t be a more perfect example to show how the justice system, capitalism, racism, and gentrification are interconnected. While kids endlessly cycle in and out of developer-subsidized jail cells, wealthy condo-dwellers will be enjoying the view from their rooftop sun decks.
Proponents are attempting to sell the plan by appealing to voters’ empathy for the poor kids locked up in a such a run-down facility. Cienna Madrid, writing for The Stranger, recently advised voters to “approve the levy—the facilities are about as safe for kids as an electric eel fishery. In some hallways, it perpetually smells as if someone took a shit in their hands and then clapped.” She goes on to quote Judge Helen L. Halpert saying, “It’s filthy, it’s decaying, and it sends an evil message to the primarily poor people who we see: ‘You just don’t matter.’”
According to these fools, imprisoning children under such shitty conditions shows them that society doesn’t really care about them. Well, news flash, “society” doesn’t really care about them. Halpert’s idiotic logic contends that a fancy new facility (no doubt a much more secure, higher capacity facility) with upscale condos and shops next door will somehow change this.
Um, what the fuck?
Obviously it is horrible to imprison children and teens in a rickety old building. But it’s just as disgusting to imprison young people in a new building with an aesthetically pleasing urban design. The problem is incarceration, period. Oh yeah, and rampant racism, a completely fucked economic system, psychotic cops, politicians... One could go on and on.
To anyone who’s been paying attention, it’s no secret that the US criminal justice system is fundamentally racist and operates in accordance with the needs of capitalism. The statistics are easy to find. There are 2.3 million people locked up in cages throughout this country. Judge Halpert admits that most of them are poor. With only 5% of the world’s population, the US boasts a full quarter of the world’s prison population. US prisoners are disproportionately black and Latino, and the prison population has sky-rocketed over the past thirty years largely due to the War on Drugs.
These statistics are alarming, but they seem to suggest that if the excesses of the justice system were scaled back, then the basic functioning of the state’s court and corrections apparatus would still be desirable. This analysis ignores that the primary purpose of laws, courts, and prisons is SOCIAL CONTROL and not the prevention of things like interpersonal violence and drug addiction.
Prison captures surplus populations—the poor and the restless—that might otherwise create real problems for the smooth functioning of capitalism. Meanwhile, the cage extends beyond the razor wire in the form of surveillance, even working its way into our minds as we police ourselves and each other. Above all, prison serves as a looming warning for any who wish to destroy this cold and disturbing reality.
The cops and courts have shown themselves to be perfectly incapable of stemming the tide of so-called crime. This is because it is this sick culture and its laws that create and construct the criminal. On the one hand, pervasive alienation reproduces the abusive sociopathy of capitalism in individuals. Television, pop songs, and our own experiences of being treated as worthless and replaceable teach us to regard each other as objects be be used and thrown away. This results in abusive behavior, in rape, in pointless murder. On the other hand, capitalism creates the economic and social conditions—poverty, necessity, vapid materialism—that fuel theft and the drug market. The state, in turn, criminalizes the things the excluded do to survive.
As long survival is tied to money, as long as there are rich and poor, as long as land is property, there will be criminals. As always, some will choose their targets wisely from the long list of individuals and institutions that profit from our exploitation and the destruction of the natural world. Others will continue to prey on people not so different from themselves. Prison has not and will never change this. The only way to stop broke, broken people from cannibalizing each other is to destroy the system that breaks us and to create new, nourishing worlds. That, not coincidentally, is also illegal.
For all of these reasons, we reject the County’s plans to “fix” the Youth Services Center. The new complex might make liberals sleep a little easier, but it will still function as a node in the network of capitalist domination. That it will be integrated with upscale gentrification only makes it that much more repulsive and offensive to all those who love and struggle for freedom.
The only way to fix the Youth Services Center is to burn it—and every other exploitative institution—to the ground.
*************
*The King County Youth Service Center houses the Juvenile Detention Center, Juvenile Court and Juvenile Court Services. It is located at 1211 East Alder Ave in the Central District.
29
Did anyone hear about Occupy's big national convention in Philly earlier this month? Neither did I.
Hey Slog, where's the Revolution you had such a boner over?
Hey Slog, where's the Revolution you had such a boner over?
30
Most "crimes" are the product of a profoundly unhealthy society which thrives on wealth inequality--put simply, capitalism needs unemployment in order to keep wages low and profits high. This creates a huge group of excluded people, many of whom end up selling drugs, stealing, and generally hustling in order to survive. They end up in jails and prisons.
Incarceration has never and will never stop "crime," including rape and murder. Neither will police.
If you'd rather read and study these things instead of relying on the bullshit you've been taught all your life, consider checking out Christian Parenti's Lockdown America. Or do a google search on "critical resistance" or the "prison industrial complex" or "prisons and capitalism" or something.
Incarceration has never and will never stop "crime," including rape and murder. Neither will police.
If you'd rather read and study these things instead of relying on the bullshit you've been taught all your life, consider checking out Christian Parenti's Lockdown America. Or do a google search on "critical resistance" or the "prison industrial complex" or "prisons and capitalism" or something.
31
@13,
Lousy analogy. They aren't proposing to add a ton of new upscale residential and commercial development for the new youth lockup in the way that SHA has a serious hard-on to do at Yelser Terrace, and they at least have a rationale as to why they can make do with fewer units onsite for the new juvenile justice facility.
Last I checked, SHA has a waiting list longer than your arm and could use a WHOLE lot more actual units of housing for low-income people. Big difference, that.
Oh yeah, and we get to vote on whether to spend our tax dollars on a new jail facility. The upscale makeover/privatization of Yesler Terrace, not so much (though the City Council could well jeopardize future housing levies if it dumps any of those dollars into the SHA market-rate sinkhole).
But back on topic, this protest is indeed dumber than dirt - though I agree that the problems cited in the post @30 are real ones....
Lousy analogy. They aren't proposing to add a ton of new upscale residential and commercial development for the new youth lockup in the way that SHA has a serious hard-on to do at Yelser Terrace, and they at least have a rationale as to why they can make do with fewer units onsite for the new juvenile justice facility.
Last I checked, SHA has a waiting list longer than your arm and could use a WHOLE lot more actual units of housing for low-income people. Big difference, that.
Oh yeah, and we get to vote on whether to spend our tax dollars on a new jail facility. The upscale makeover/privatization of Yesler Terrace, not so much (though the City Council could well jeopardize future housing levies if it dumps any of those dollars into the SHA market-rate sinkhole).
But back on topic, this protest is indeed dumber than dirt - though I agree that the problems cited in the post @30 are real ones....
32
Oops - just read the post @28. I guess the analogy was better than I gave it credit for (unfortunately).
33
Today, over two-thirds of prisoners in the US are locked up for nonviolent offenses. It is no surprise that the majority of prisoners are poor people and people of color, given the criminalization of drugs and immigration, the disproportionately harsh penalties for the drugs typically used by poor people, and the greater chance people of color have of being convicted or sentenced more harshly for the same crimes. Likewise, the intense presence of militarized police in ghettos and poor neighborhoods is connected to the fact that crime stays high in those neighborhoods while rates of incarceration increase. The police and prisons are systems of control that preserve social inequalities, spread fear and resentment, exclude and alienate whole communities, and exercise extreme violence against the most oppressed sectors of society.
Those who can organize their own lives within their communities are better equipped to protect themselves. Some societies and communities that have won autonomy from the state organize volunteer patrols to help people in need and discourage aggressions. Unlike the police, these groups generally do not have coercive authority or a closed, bureaucratic structure, and are more likely to be made up of volunteers from within the neighborhood. They focus on protecting people rather than property or privilege, and in the absence of a legal code they respond to people’s needs rather than inflexible protocol. Other societies organize against social harm without setting up specific institutions. Instead they utilize diffuse sanctions—responses and attitudes spread throughout the society and propagated in the culture—to promote a safe environment.
Anarchists take an entirely different view of the problems that authoritarian societies place within the framework of crime and punishment. A crime is the violation of a written law, and laws are imposed by elite bodies. In the final instance, the question is not whether someone is hurting others but whether she is disobeying the orders of the elite. As a response to crime, punishment creates hierarchies of morality and power between the criminal and the dispensers of justice. It denies the criminal the resources he may need to reintegrate into the community and to stop hurting others.
In an empowered society, people do not need written laws; they have the power to determine whether someone is preventing them from fulfilling their needs, and can call on their peers for help resolving conflicts. In this view, the problem is not crime, but social harm—actions such as assault and drunk driving that actually hurt other people. This paradigm does away with the category of victimless crime, and reveals the absurdity of protecting the property rights of privileged people over the survival needs of others. The outrages typical of capitalist justice, such as arresting the hungry for stealing from the wealthy, would not be possible in a needs-based paradigm.
From http://riselikelions.net/pamphlets/3/ana…
More...
Those who can organize their own lives within their communities are better equipped to protect themselves. Some societies and communities that have won autonomy from the state organize volunteer patrols to help people in need and discourage aggressions. Unlike the police, these groups generally do not have coercive authority or a closed, bureaucratic structure, and are more likely to be made up of volunteers from within the neighborhood. They focus on protecting people rather than property or privilege, and in the absence of a legal code they respond to people’s needs rather than inflexible protocol. Other societies organize against social harm without setting up specific institutions. Instead they utilize diffuse sanctions—responses and attitudes spread throughout the society and propagated in the culture—to promote a safe environment.
Anarchists take an entirely different view of the problems that authoritarian societies place within the framework of crime and punishment. A crime is the violation of a written law, and laws are imposed by elite bodies. In the final instance, the question is not whether someone is hurting others but whether she is disobeying the orders of the elite. As a response to crime, punishment creates hierarchies of morality and power between the criminal and the dispensers of justice. It denies the criminal the resources he may need to reintegrate into the community and to stop hurting others.
In an empowered society, people do not need written laws; they have the power to determine whether someone is preventing them from fulfilling their needs, and can call on their peers for help resolving conflicts. In this view, the problem is not crime, but social harm—actions such as assault and drunk driving that actually hurt other people. This paradigm does away with the category of victimless crime, and reveals the absurdity of protecting the property rights of privileged people over the survival needs of others. The outrages typical of capitalist justice, such as arresting the hungry for stealing from the wealthy, would not be possible in a needs-based paradigm.
From http://riselikelions.net/pamphlets/3/ana…
34
@28 - Okay, I read your article. It was fucking retarded and not really worthy of rebuttal, but I'm feeling generous.
par3. "Problem solved!"
--To the extent that you identified the problem as the building being decrepit and foul-smelling, that would fix the problem exactly. Glad we're on the same page.
par4. "...about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000"
--Exactly $24.50. The math isn't particularly tough.
par6 "While kids endlessly cycle in and out of developer-subsidized jail cells.."
--Seems worth pointing out that the facility also handles noncriminal matters like the protection of abused and neglected children and provides social services to at-risk youth, which demonstrably reduces the liklihood of them ending up in one of said jail cells.
par8 "no doubt a much...higher capacity facility"
--I doubt it. Indeed, I disbelieve it. Because the proposed facility is lower capacity, not higher. Because a number of programs such as drug court have reduced the detention population, while community programs like Diversion (which I worked at for 5 years) keep more than half of the criminal referrals out of the court room entirely, fuck you very much.
par10 "Obviously it is horrible to imprison children and teens in a rickety old building. But it’s just as disgusting to imprison young people in a new building"
--No. No it isn't. If you're right, and there's no degree of difference, then we could lock 70 kids into a single 10x10...I'm sure they'd fit, if barely. Sure, a few might die..but their housing condition is literally no more disgusting than being housed in a modern facility. I believe it's my turn to say "The fuck?"
par.therest "Blah, blah, blah, burn it down"
You know, I ran out of generosity. There's just no point in explaining why you're wrong because you won't actually think about a word I've written.
I have to say, I'm really glad you're out there laying in the streets making a real difference in society, while I just sit here in my network of capitalist domination, making money hand over fist, sucking at the teat of the "real taxpayer" and laughing with all my liberal friends about all the poor young people of color I have stashed away in prison cells.
...wait, something's not right. If I'm a Part of the Problem, why do I need a roommate in order to afford my smallish CD apartment? I'll have to think about that one.
More...
par3. "Problem solved!"
--To the extent that you identified the problem as the building being decrepit and foul-smelling, that would fix the problem exactly. Glad we're on the same page.
par4. "...about $20 per year for a home assessed at $350,000"
--Exactly $24.50. The math isn't particularly tough.
par6 "While kids endlessly cycle in and out of developer-subsidized jail cells.."
--Seems worth pointing out that the facility also handles noncriminal matters like the protection of abused and neglected children and provides social services to at-risk youth, which demonstrably reduces the liklihood of them ending up in one of said jail cells.
par8 "no doubt a much...higher capacity facility"
--I doubt it. Indeed, I disbelieve it. Because the proposed facility is lower capacity, not higher. Because a number of programs such as drug court have reduced the detention population, while community programs like Diversion (which I worked at for 5 years) keep more than half of the criminal referrals out of the court room entirely, fuck you very much.
par10 "Obviously it is horrible to imprison children and teens in a rickety old building. But it’s just as disgusting to imprison young people in a new building"
--No. No it isn't. If you're right, and there's no degree of difference, then we could lock 70 kids into a single 10x10...I'm sure they'd fit, if barely. Sure, a few might die..but their housing condition is literally no more disgusting than being housed in a modern facility. I believe it's my turn to say "The fuck?"
par.therest "Blah, blah, blah, burn it down"
You know, I ran out of generosity. There's just no point in explaining why you're wrong because you won't actually think about a word I've written.
I have to say, I'm really glad you're out there laying in the streets making a real difference in society, while I just sit here in my network of capitalist domination, making money hand over fist, sucking at the teat of the "real taxpayer" and laughing with all my liberal friends about all the poor young people of color I have stashed away in prison cells.
...wait, something's not right. If I'm a Part of the Problem, why do I need a roommate in order to afford my smallish CD apartment? I'll have to think about that one.
35
I think you missed the part where capitalism creates and requires crime. As for being Part of the Problem, you're just as much a part of the problem as all the other idiots who'd rather laugh and nitpick than actually risk something to significantly alter this seriously fucked up state of affairs.
THE JUSTICE SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK AT SOLVING "CRIME."
THE JUSTICE SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK AT SOLVING "CRIME."
36
I say we round them up and give them a month long tour of the conditions inside.
@34
Thank you for your service.
Juvi Corrections is once of the deepest pits in hell.
@34
Thank you for your service.
Juvi Corrections is once of the deepest pits in hell.
37
@30
Incarceration has never and will never stop "crime," including rape and murder. Neither will police.
So the solution is to just let rapist and murderers run around in the community with no law enforcement, that is going to work out well. Although i do hear that execution is a pretty good solution to crime.
Yes there is more to solving crime than just prisons and police, much of it goes back to the individuals and their families, who seem to be wither unable or unwilling to prevent criminal behavior.
Incarceration has never and will never stop "crime," including rape and murder. Neither will police.
So the solution is to just let rapist and murderers run around in the community with no law enforcement, that is going to work out well. Although i do hear that execution is a pretty good solution to crime.
Yes there is more to solving crime than just prisons and police, much of it goes back to the individuals and their families, who seem to be wither unable or unwilling to prevent criminal behavior.
39
@36 - You're sweet. I actually really enjoyed my time with the Community Diversion program. Relatively minor offenses, and I genuinely believe we were making a difference for those families. I've been in Records at the courthouse for the last year, and it's much less pleasant, though not circle-of-hell worthy. Just much more...coggy.
The diversion office shared a floor with the CASA (child advocates) folks, and THEY are the ones worth bowing and kissing the feet of. I cannot imagine the mental fortitude it takes to do that job.
The diversion office shared a floor with the CASA (child advocates) folks, and THEY are the ones worth bowing and kissing the feet of. I cannot imagine the mental fortitude it takes to do that job.
40
Youth Jail?
That's Government action I could support.
Put all the little Tuba Man Killers in the pen before they reach age 14.
41
" Unlike the police, these groups generally do not have coercive authority or a closed, bureaucratic structure, and are more likely to be made up of volunteers from within the neighborhood"
It's wonderful how delusional anarchists are about the true nature of human animals. Like all extremists, the only way they can create their utopia will be on the bodies of millions…..so SPD, mace and club them at will please.
It's wonderful how delusional anarchists are about the true nature of human animals. Like all extremists, the only way they can create their utopia will be on the bodies of millions…..so SPD, mace and club them at will please.
42
"Most "crimes" are the product of a profoundly unhealthy society which thrives on wealth inequality"
Which explains why the streets of Pyongyang are so safe.
Which explains why the streets of Pyongyang are so safe.
43
Even in the lefty press, the reporters still haven't wrapped their heads around fact that there's no such thing as a group strongly "associated with Occupy." Occupy was a thing people did, not a group people joined.
If what you're trying to say is that some or most of the people doing some new thing were also participants in Occupy, then just say that. Or if you're instead trying to say that the thing they're doing seems to be reheating some of the rhetoric left over from Occupy, say that.
"A group of participants in previous Occupy actions" might be the phrase you want.
A group loosely associated with Occupy Seattle
Even in the lefty press, the reporters still haven't wrapped their heads around fact that there's no such thing as a group strongly "associated with Occupy." Occupy was a thing people did, not a group people joined.
If what you're trying to say is that some or most of the people doing some new thing were also participants in Occupy, then just say that. Or if you're instead trying to say that the thing they're doing seems to be reheating some of the rhetoric left over from Occupy, say that.
"A group of participants in previous Occupy actions" might be the phrase you want.
44
Even if this was an off-the-cuff remark, it's remarkably revealing as to the size and shape of the bubble these particular activists are living in.
Notable seats of government north of San Francisco:
Chicago
Boston
Philadelphia
New York City
and, uh...
Washington, DC
we are going after the biggest government seat north of San Francisco.
Even if this was an off-the-cuff remark, it's remarkably revealing as to the size and shape of the bubble these particular activists are living in.
Notable seats of government north of San Francisco:
Chicago
Boston
Philadelphia
New York City
and, uh...
Washington, DC
47
Mr. X, I don't think my analogy to Yesler Terrace is lousy at all. Here's why:
Yesler Terrace is going to be redeveloped, no matter what hand-wringing or cheap theatrics this faux "activist" community comes up with. The buildings are deteriorated past their useful life and - much more to the point - that view property is far too valuable to not get developed. That may cause some readers to clutch their pearls or clench their jaws, but that's the truth.
But instead of working to make sure that the number of low-income units is expanded, and that the rights of the tenants are preserved, these "activists" are busy scoring attention points. It make them, and their cause, a joke, and defeats the work of the true advocates who work quietly, and usually under the radar, to get things done
It's the same with the youth correctional center: we will never, ever, get rid of jails. That's a stupid idea. But we can have a decent facility that at least affords the people involved (youth, staff, family, cops) a measure of dignity and comfort in an inherently stressful environment.
It's nice to sit in a coffee shop, or show up at a "march and protest", and imagine yourself an advocate for the poor or "the youth", but in the meantime, people in the real world are left to do the heavy lifting to actually make things better. Having to be lumped in with these crazies doesn't help their work.
Yesler Terrace is going to be redeveloped, no matter what hand-wringing or cheap theatrics this faux "activist" community comes up with. The buildings are deteriorated past their useful life and - much more to the point - that view property is far too valuable to not get developed. That may cause some readers to clutch their pearls or clench their jaws, but that's the truth.
But instead of working to make sure that the number of low-income units is expanded, and that the rights of the tenants are preserved, these "activists" are busy scoring attention points. It make them, and their cause, a joke, and defeats the work of the true advocates who work quietly, and usually under the radar, to get things done
It's the same with the youth correctional center: we will never, ever, get rid of jails. That's a stupid idea. But we can have a decent facility that at least affords the people involved (youth, staff, family, cops) a measure of dignity and comfort in an inherently stressful environment.
It's nice to sit in a coffee shop, or show up at a "march and protest", and imagine yourself an advocate for the poor or "the youth", but in the meantime, people in the real world are left to do the heavy lifting to actually make things better. Having to be lumped in with these crazies doesn't help their work.
48
Just for the record--from KC Council Documents:
In 2000 The County Council adopted plan to change how we deal with juvenile offenders. The Juvenile Justice Operational MasterPlan, developed over two years starting in 1998, recommended making system changes that would eliminate the need to build an additional 80 juvenile detention beds (added to the existing 200 detention beds) with capital costs of at least $6.8 million, plus the addition of annual operational costs in the millions of dollars.
Most of the system efficiencies and alternative intervention and prevention strategies recommended in the Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan have been implemented. The implementation of the Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan recommendations have not only eliminated the need to build additional detention beds but has resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the number of juvenile offender filings and a 63 percent reduction in the use of secure detention for juveniles, with comparable reductions in the number of juveniles under probation supervision. In a county with 1.9 million residents, only70 youth are in detention on an average day--down from over 200 per day ten years ago.
Almost 12,000 youth have had access to prevention and intervention strategies that were developoed as part of JJOMP since its inception. The reductions in offender filings, secure detention, and community supervision have resulted in an annual operational savings totaling over $25 million since 2001, for detention and court services as well as other savings accruing to the prosecuting attorney and public defense budgets. The savings calculation does not include the reduced societal costs for victims and communities when juvenile crime is reduced.
The new facility proposed udner the bond measure would have FEWER detention beds, but those beds would allow for the provision of services for youth in detention. The new courts facility would also allow even better access to prevention and intervention services because space for these programs will be built into the new facility.
More...
In 2000 The County Council adopted plan to change how we deal with juvenile offenders. The Juvenile Justice Operational MasterPlan, developed over two years starting in 1998, recommended making system changes that would eliminate the need to build an additional 80 juvenile detention beds (added to the existing 200 detention beds) with capital costs of at least $6.8 million, plus the addition of annual operational costs in the millions of dollars.
Most of the system efficiencies and alternative intervention and prevention strategies recommended in the Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan have been implemented. The implementation of the Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan recommendations have not only eliminated the need to build additional detention beds but has resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the number of juvenile offender filings and a 63 percent reduction in the use of secure detention for juveniles, with comparable reductions in the number of juveniles under probation supervision. In a county with 1.9 million residents, only70 youth are in detention on an average day--down from over 200 per day ten years ago.
Almost 12,000 youth have had access to prevention and intervention strategies that were developoed as part of JJOMP since its inception. The reductions in offender filings, secure detention, and community supervision have resulted in an annual operational savings totaling over $25 million since 2001, for detention and court services as well as other savings accruing to the prosecuting attorney and public defense budgets. The savings calculation does not include the reduced societal costs for victims and communities when juvenile crime is reduced.
The new facility proposed udner the bond measure would have FEWER detention beds, but those beds would allow for the provision of services for youth in detention. The new courts facility would also allow even better access to prevention and intervention services because space for these programs will be built into the new facility.
49
Was this group the same group that shut down a community meeting held by the King County Council at Seattle University to inform the public and solicit opinions from neighbors regarding the youth detention/justice center? They also did not want construction of any jails, especially for youth. They hurled obscenities and shouted at the speakers until the meeting had to be ended. It really was boneheaded and shows exactly how stupid these people are.
I totally believe in diversion programs. I believe in putting money into programs also that will keep people from getting in trouble in the first place. But this type of Pollyanna-ish thinking is idiotic.
If this is the same group, they are associated with Puget Sound Anarchists. Their site has video of the Council meeting. But I won't link to it because I don't want to drive up traffic.
I totally believe in diversion programs. I believe in putting money into programs also that will keep people from getting in trouble in the first place. But this type of Pollyanna-ish thinking is idiotic.
If this is the same group, they are associated with Puget Sound Anarchists. Their site has video of the Council meeting. But I won't link to it because I don't want to drive up traffic.
51
@47,
If it weren't for John Fox and the Displacement Coalition, High Point and Holly Park wouldn't have come anywhere near replacing the number of units for very low-income residents that they ultimately did (though it is extremely unfortunate that neither project resulted in an actual increase in units for poor people - but you sure as hell can't pin that failure on "activists" - unless that's what you call the Mayor and City Council).
If it weren't for John Fox and the Displacement Coalition, High Point and Holly Park wouldn't have come anywhere near replacing the number of units for very low-income residents that they ultimately did (though it is extremely unfortunate that neither project resulted in an actual increase in units for poor people - but you sure as hell can't pin that failure on "activists" - unless that's what you call the Mayor and City Council).
52
Mr. X, I agree that John Fox and the Seattle Displacement Coalition's records speak for themselves. It just depends on which website you consult for that record, doesn't it?
A long history of grandstanding does not a lasting legacy make. OTOH, It sometimes doesn't hurt - you just have to know when and how to work it. I think that, unfortunately, some people's dance card was filled out decades ago, and they are now in the stag line, desparate for even a sideways glance. Yesler Terrace may just be that last chance. But will that spell be broken when the night meets the morning sun? (didn't this thread just call out for some Carole King?)
A long history of grandstanding does not a lasting legacy make. OTOH, It sometimes doesn't hurt - you just have to know when and how to work it. I think that, unfortunately, some people's dance card was filled out decades ago, and they are now in the stag line, desparate for even a sideways glance. Yesler Terrace may just be that last chance. But will that spell be broken when the night meets the morning sun? (didn't this thread just call out for some Carole King?)
53
@52,
SHA's current plan for Yesler Terrace doesn't even replace all of the current units onsite or create new units elsewhere, and they've had to be dragged kicking and screaming into replacing low income units in their other major redevelopment projects. You want a record that speaks for itself? SHA has one a mile long.
When redevelopment dollars (from a wide variety of sources - many of which could and should go to other projects) of this magnitude are being proposed, they need to add more low income housing units, not less - and only the critics of the SHA plan are making that point in any way shape or form. Without people like John Fox SHA would most likely be proposing an even worse plan than this one.
Something's going on here, there can be no denying - but it's yet another massive privatization/gentrification giveaway rather than a Carole King song. Going along with the current plan won't do a damn thing to alter it, either.
SHA's current plan for Yesler Terrace doesn't even replace all of the current units onsite or create new units elsewhere, and they've had to be dragged kicking and screaming into replacing low income units in their other major redevelopment projects. You want a record that speaks for itself? SHA has one a mile long.
When redevelopment dollars (from a wide variety of sources - many of which could and should go to other projects) of this magnitude are being proposed, they need to add more low income housing units, not less - and only the critics of the SHA plan are making that point in any way shape or form. Without people like John Fox SHA would most likely be proposing an even worse plan than this one.
Something's going on here, there can be no denying - but it's yet another massive privatization/gentrification giveaway rather than a Carole King song. Going along with the current plan won't do a damn thing to alter it, either.
54
Mr. X, all I know about Yesler Terrace, is what I read from their master plan, and it says this:
661 units serving people with incomes below 30 percent Average Median Income, consisting of 561 units to replace those currently there and 100 additional units developed with partners
290 additional low-income units serving people with incomes from 30-60 percent AMI
850 workforce housing serving people with incomes below 80 percent AMI
1,200-3,200 market-rate housing units
Presuming they are telling the truth - and these are the numbers they are taking to the zoning department - they are expanding their access to low-income people considerably. I think it should be more - that 1200-3200 number has entirely too much wiggle room for my taste - but it's their plan, not mine.
As for previous projects, Everyone says that they didn't replace the full number of units on their other projects, but no one presents any facts to support that.
661 units serving people with incomes below 30 percent Average Median Income, consisting of 561 units to replace those currently there and 100 additional units developed with partners
290 additional low-income units serving people with incomes from 30-60 percent AMI
850 workforce housing serving people with incomes below 80 percent AMI
1,200-3,200 market-rate housing units
Presuming they are telling the truth - and these are the numbers they are taking to the zoning department - they are expanding their access to low-income people considerably. I think it should be more - that 1200-3200 number has entirely too much wiggle room for my taste - but it's their plan, not mine.
As for previous projects, Everyone says that they didn't replace the full number of units on their other projects, but no one presents any facts to support that.
56
>Doesn't want there to be a new youth corrections facility
>Doesn't want there to be any jails or correctional facilities at all
>Doesn't have a single other alternative
>Really should have thought it out before opening their mouth and making a huge deal out of it.
Hahaha, and people here still think Occupy Seattle exists. Come on gang, we had a good run. I was even pepper-sprayed directly in the face for standing in solidarity with you when the city hated you most, and I wore it proudly. But this... You guys just have no clue what you're doing anymore. The effort is appreciated, but when there's no correctional facilities in Seattle, you're letting every gunman, rapist, wife-beating/child abusing degenerate walk the streets like everybody else, and that just doesn't work for me.
>Doesn't want there to be any jails or correctional facilities at all
>Doesn't have a single other alternative
>Really should have thought it out before opening their mouth and making a huge deal out of it.
Hahaha, and people here still think Occupy Seattle exists. Come on gang, we had a good run. I was even pepper-sprayed directly in the face for standing in solidarity with you when the city hated you most, and I wore it proudly. But this... You guys just have no clue what you're doing anymore. The effort is appreciated, but when there's no correctional facilities in Seattle, you're letting every gunman, rapist, wife-beating/child abusing degenerate walk the streets like everybody else, and that just doesn't work for me.
57
>Doesn't want there to be a new youth corrections facility
>Doesn't want there to be any jails or correctional facilities at all
>Doesn't have a single other alternative
>Really should have thought it out before opening their mouth and making a huge deal out of it.
Hahaha, and people here still think Occupy Seattle exists. Come on gang, we had a good run. I was even pepper-sprayed directly in the face for standing in solidarity with you when the city hated you most, and I wore it proudly. But this... You guys just have no clue what you're doing anymore. The effort is appreciated, but when there's no correctional facilities in Seattle, you're letting every gunman, rapist, wife-beating/child abusing degenerate walk the streets like everybody else, and that just doesn't work for me.
>Doesn't want there to be any jails or correctional facilities at all
>Doesn't have a single other alternative
>Really should have thought it out before opening their mouth and making a huge deal out of it.
Hahaha, and people here still think Occupy Seattle exists. Come on gang, we had a good run. I was even pepper-sprayed directly in the face for standing in solidarity with you when the city hated you most, and I wore it proudly. But this... You guys just have no clue what you're doing anymore. The effort is appreciated, but when there's no correctional facilities in Seattle, you're letting every gunman, rapist, wife-beating/child abusing degenerate walk the streets like everybody else, and that just doesn't work for me.
58
the reporter for this believes the Prop1 campaign when they say they're "downsizing" the jail..????
in case you haven't been to Kent, WA, that's where the out-flux of South King County youth in the Seattle jail have gone since that was built in 2001. Also, they go to religious foster care services, now more than ever. You think building another jail is good? The youth prison system is a joke!!! It should rather be stopped than continued at all. The building should be completely abandoned if they say they can't use it. Why aren't they just evacuating already? Their campaign smells so hard like a lot of money. in fact.. it's the number 1 "top capital priority spending project" according the King County Council who drafted it.
in case you haven't been to Kent, WA, that's where the out-flux of South King County youth in the Seattle jail have gone since that was built in 2001. Also, they go to religious foster care services, now more than ever. You think building another jail is good? The youth prison system is a joke!!! It should rather be stopped than continued at all. The building should be completely abandoned if they say they can't use it. Why aren't they just evacuating already? Their campaign smells so hard like a lot of money. in fact.. it's the number 1 "top capital priority spending project" according the King County Council who drafted it.
59
It is boneheaded actions like this that make glad I no longer associate with Occupy Seattle. The circumstances and issues that gave rise to the occupy movement continue to exist and thoughtful action on the part of citizens is still needed to correct the mess that exists. Actions like this go a long way to the delegitimization the Occupy Movement. I understand the horrors of the prison-industrial complex-but this is just stupid.
60
the reporter for this believes the Prop1 campaign when they say they're "downsizing" the jail..????
in case you haven't been to Kent, WA, that's where the out-flux of South King County youth in the Seattle jail have gone since that was built in 2001. Also, they go to religious foster care services, now more than ever. You think building another jail is good? The youth prison system is a joke!!! It should rather be stopped than continued at all. The building should be completely abandoned if they say they can't use it. Why aren't they just evacuating already? Their campaign smells so hard like a lot of money. in fact.. it's the number 1 "top capital priority spending project" according the King County Council who drafted it.
in case you haven't been to Kent, WA, that's where the out-flux of South King County youth in the Seattle jail have gone since that was built in 2001. Also, they go to religious foster care services, now more than ever. You think building another jail is good? The youth prison system is a joke!!! It should rather be stopped than continued at all. The building should be completely abandoned if they say they can't use it. Why aren't they just evacuating already? Their campaign smells so hard like a lot of money. in fact.. it's the number 1 "top capital priority spending project" according the King County Council who drafted it.
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