{"id":19312,"date":"2013-12-13T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T17:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19312"},"modified":"2013-12-13T10:01:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T17:01:07","slug":"stealing-freedom-americas-ever-expanding-police-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19312","title":{"rendered":"Stealing Freedom – America’s Ever Expanding Police State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police Overkill Has Entered the DNA of Social Policy<\/em><\/p>\n

The Over-Policing of America<\/strong>
\nBy Chase Madar – 8 December, 2013 – Tomgram<\/p>\n

If all you\u2019ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves \u201csolving\u201d social problems (and even some non-problems) by throwing cops at them, with generally disastrous results. Wall-to-wall criminal law encroaches ever more on everyday life as police power is applied in ways that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.<\/p>\n

By now, the militarization of the police has advanced to the point where “the War on Crime\u201d and \u201cthe War on Drugs\u201d are no longer metaphors but bland understatements. There is the proliferation of heavily armed SWAT teams, even in small towns; the use of shock-and-awe tactics to bust small-time bookies; the no-knock raids to recover trace amounts of drugs that often result in the killing of family dogs, if not family members; and in communities where drug treatment programs once were key, the waging of a drug version of counterinsurgency war. (All of this is ably reported on journalist Radley Balko\u2019s blog and in his book, The Rise of the Warrior Cop.) But American over-policing involves far more than the widely reported up-armoring of your local precinct. It\u2019s also the way police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter.
\n
\nThe School-to-Prison Pipeline<\/strong><\/p>\n

It starts in our schools, where discipline is increasingly outsourced to police personnel. What not long ago would have been seen as normal childhood misbehavior — doodling on a desk, farting in class, a kindergartener\u2019s tantrum — can leave a kid in handcuffs, removed from school, or even booked at the local precinct. Such \u201ccriminals\u201d can be as young as seven-year-old Wilson Reyes, a New Yorker who was handcuffed and interrogated under suspicion of stealing five dollars from a classmate. (Turned out he didn\u2019t do it.)<\/p>\n

Though it’s a national phenomenon, Mississippi currently leads the way in turning school behavior into a police issue. The Hospitality State has imposed felony charges on schoolchildren for \u201ccrimes\u201d like throwing peanuts on a bus. Wearing the wrong color belt to school got one child handcuffed to a railing for several hours. All of this goes under the rubric of \u201czero-tolerance\u201d discipline, which turns out to be just another form of violence legally imported into schools.<\/p>\n

Despite a long-term drop in youth crime, the carceral style of education remains in style. Metal detectors — a horrible way for any child to start the day — are installed in ever more schools, even those with sterling disciplinary records, despite the demonstrable fact that such scanners provide no guarantee against shootings and stabbings.<\/p>\n

Every school shooting, whether in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, or Littleton, Colorado, only leads to more police in schools and more arms as well. It\u2019s the one thing the National Rifle Association and Democratic senators can agree on. There are plenty of successful ways to run an orderly school without criminalizing the classroom, but politicians and much of the media don\u2019t seem to want to know about them. The \u201cschool-to-prison pipeline,\u201d a jargon term coined by activists, is entering the vernacular.<\/p>\n

Go to Jail, Do Not Pass Go
\n<\/strong>
\nEven as simple a matter as getting yourself from point A to point B can quickly become a law enforcement matter as travel and public space are ever more aggressively policed. Waiting for a bus? Such loitering just got three Rochester youths arrested. Driving without a seat belt can easily escalate into an arrest, even if the driver is a state judge. (Notably, all four of these men were black.) If the police think you might be carrying drugs, warrantless body cavity searches at the nearest hospital may be in the offing — you will be sent the bill later. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Police Overkill Has Entered the DNA of Social Policy The Over-Policing of America By Chase Madar – 8 December, 2013 – Tomgram If all you\u2019ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2662],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19313,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19312\/revisions\/19313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}