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You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Working As Intended, Citizen Pierce!

Working As Intended, Citizen Pierce!

by Anne Laurie|  December 21, 20118:46 am| 17 Comments

This post is in: An Unexamined Scandal, Domestic Politics, Education, Decline and Fall, Good News For Conservatives, Security Theatre

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Charlie Pierce, Esquire, is alarmed by a new “pediatric health” study:

Of all the numbers in this new study, the following remains an astonishing statistic: By the time they’re 23, 41 percent of American kids have been busted for something more serious than a traffic stop… To me, it’s an indication of that something is seriously out of whack in the way we’re asking our law enforcement community to interact with our children.
__
Children today grow up surrounded by the police power of the state, both the soft and hard versions of it. At almost every level of their lives, they are policed, in one way or another, either by the police themselves, or by administrators and bureaucrats to whom the police and the courts have subcontracted the job. They have no Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights as soon as they walk through the schoolhouse door. They are searched. They are tested for drugs. Their rights of free expression are tightly circumscribed. Rights unexercised atrophy. We have raised, and are now raising, generations of children who are completely ignorant of the rights they have as citizens, and we are doing it through the application of the most coercive powers the state possesses…

Another triumph for the Banana Republicans! Let’s face it, the fortunate sons of the One Percenters — ask the C-Plus Augustus — have always been able to treat the police as nothing more than well-armed security guards. Cops were for keeping those people in line and away from the better neighborhoods, unless they were toting cleaning equipment or yard tools. And the bottom Twenty Percenters, give or take, knew “the arrangement” and warned their kids about the dangers. But over the last few decades, as the unindicted Watergate co-conspirators cemented their criminal takeover under St. Ronnie and the two Bush regencies, those Americans who were once fortunate enough to consider themselves “middle class” have been ever-so-slowly relegated to the ranks of barbarians-outside-the-gated-community. And the increasing militarization of School Security (because drugs! Gangs! Forced busing! Drugs! Hippies! Also Columbine! Foreigner gangs! And did we mention, drugs!) has been one weapon for reminding the rank and file that they — we — have no rights our masters can’t find an excuse to erode.

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Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    Punchy

    December 21, 2011 at 8:59 am

    In the KC metro, some 13 year old chick fought another on the school bus, captured on a cell phone camera. Now, instead of a simple school suspension, they’re considering filing assault charges. For a simple slap fight on a bus.

    And then there was that 7-year old from Wisconsin who was facing felony sex assualt charges for playing “doctor” with a 6-year old girl.

    Shit’s a mess.

  2. 2.

    c u n d gulag

    December 21, 2011 at 9:08 am

    All of that, AND MORE!

    Like the Military’s younger brother, our police get cool hand-me-downs from them!

    From tanks that you might need to run over OWS protesters on the street.

    To the RPG’s needed to take out speeding cars full of swarthy people.

    To the new micro-wave ray guns which will turn anyone not compliant enough into a “Hot Pocket.”

    And, coming soon to a theatre near you – the new laser that’s being developed to temporarily blind people.
    Instead of a speed-gun, a cop could point that at you and blind you enough to slow you down – so that 18-wheeler behind you crushes you like foot stepping on a grape.

    Or, point and shoot at a jaywalker – and confuse them long enough to get run over by that swarthy driver from a Muslim land.

    And more cool toys they get, the more they’re itching to use them!

    I mean, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanza, would you give out gifts and then tell your children that they can’t play with them?

    Well, our cops want to play to!
    Too bad it’s with our lives…

  3. 3.

    S. cerevisiae

    December 21, 2011 at 9:12 am

    Gotta keep the serfs under control. All part of the New Feudalism they are getting us ready for. I really feel sorry for the kids who have to endure this crap in school these days – not to mention the fucked-up biosphere we are leaving them.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    December 21, 2011 at 10:06 am

    This is The Backlash in action.

    The more the counter-culture movements of the sixties enfranchised people of color and women of all; the more they celebrated democracy and wished for less war; the more woundup and frantic the opposition becomes.

    I somehow must have missed the book discussion posts on The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin; but I don’t regret being led to this fascinating book. His contention is that “the progress creates the reaction.” It is an indelible facet of the human psyche continuum; these people arise when human rights increase and get agitated because they feel that their own is being pulled from them.

    It is stupid and shallow and wrong, of course. But conservatives are “zero sum” thinkers.

  5. 5.

    The Moar You Know

    December 21, 2011 at 10:10 am

    Growing up, half my family was cops. I also spent some time, post-parent’s divorce, in the bottom 20%. Boy, when you’re on the bottom you can see a lot you couldn’t see before.

    The interesting thing was the pains that the law enforcement side of my family took in instructing me how to deal with cops – put nicely, cops know what the score is and are terrified of other cops that they don’t know personally – and that advice stood me in good stead over the last few decades.

    That 41% of kids getting popped pretty much precludes them from a decent career in the armed forces (a guy without a TS clearance isn’t going anywhere) and from most government work in general. Gonna be interesting to see how those kids turn out politically.

  6. 6.

    G

    December 21, 2011 at 10:18 am

    I read the summary of the pediatrics story on monday in the wire services hosted by cbs.

    what it didn’t have was a breakdown by race, or economic status. for example, Lohan picked up her arrests prior to the age of 23 if memory serves, but I’d expect the rich blonde female isn’t a big part of this dataset.

    another bit of data that would be interesting to see… is the ratio of arrests to actual court filings. Are these kids actually going to court or does the case never get there. In california, the probation department has the power to make some cases go away prior to going to court.

  7. 7.

    Ian

    December 21, 2011 at 10:32 am

    @The Moar You Know:
    I have been stopped by police many times in my raggety street gear.
    Guess how many times I have been stopped by the police walking down the street in my church clothes?

  8. 8.

    The Moar You Know

    December 21, 2011 at 10:43 am

    what it didn’t have was a breakdown by race, or economic status.

    @G: 41% of all kids is going to include pretty much everybody. I can tell you from watching what’s going on here in San Diego is that over the last decade, cops are going after rich white kids like nothing I’ve ever seen before. My suspicions are that this is because their parents can pay large fines that their poorer counterparts just can’t afford.

  9. 9.

    The Moar You Know

    December 21, 2011 at 11:00 am

    I have been stopped by police many times in my raggety street gear.

    @Ian: I was a longhaired bass guitarist. Didn’t cut the hair until I was 30. I used to get pulled over every fucking day. If not for the instruction my family gave me I’m sure I’d have ended up in jail or way worse.

    Don’t want to hazard a guess about your police encounters dressed in your Sunday best but where I live that is no protection any more – especially if you’re young.

  10. 10.

    Feudalism Now!

    December 21, 2011 at 11:01 am

    The funny thing is as budget cuts fall on all the various outreach and support groups, the expedient solution is to turn problems over to law enforcement. Mentors are volunteers or given a case load that blunts their impact. We kick out at-risk kids crutch and have an overtaxed law enforcement and judiciary kick them when they fall down.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    December 21, 2011 at 11:08 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    My suspicions are that this is because their parents can pay large fines that their poorer counterparts just can’t afford.

    I suspect that when rich people decided they didn’t want to have to fund the police department out of their taxes, this is one of the “alternative revenue streams” that the cops came up with.

  12. 12.

    Epicurus

    December 21, 2011 at 11:13 am

    Gahd, it always comes back to Richard Effing Nixon. What a poisonous scumbag that man was! Unfortunately, those who have followed in his footsteps have proven to be even more psychopathic and criminal. I do grieve for our country…but it’s not too late! Stop electing Republicans, please. I want my republic back.

  13. 13.

    kc

    December 21, 2011 at 11:23 am

    By the time they’re 23, 41 percent of American kids have been busted for something more serious than a traffic stop…

    I wonder what percentage of them have been tased.

    And unfortunately, I don’t think the banana Republicans are the only ones to blame for this state of affairs.

  14. 14.

    Jerzy Russian

    December 21, 2011 at 11:24 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    Just out of idle curiosity, what part of San Diego are you in?

  15. 15.

    Hubris

    December 21, 2011 at 11:41 am

    Mr. Pierce omitted the crucial “up to” qualification before the 41%–the researchers provided a wide range. They also provided context through comparison to a 1965 survey.

    In unrelated news, there has been a surge in the prevalence of America’s youth citing studies they haven’t read in order to support their points.

  16. 16.

    moderateindy

    December 21, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    Ever since the school systems in this country began slowly introducing random locker searches, and then drug dogs doing sweeps, I have argued that this was a prelude to things much more sinister. It may not have been planned that way, but this kind of activity in school sets up the same type of activity in people’s every day lives once they get to adulthood. Call it the “well it was good enough when I was a kid” syndrome. If as a kid random unwarranted searches are common practice, then as an adult the idea doesn’t seem quite as intrusive. Get people used to not having their rights at a young age, and they’ll barely notice as they slowly lose them as they age. I feel the random “safety/drunk driving roadblock ” functions the same way. Can you imagine if on a regular basis cops set up roadblocks, and pulled everyone over to check and make sure they weren’t doing anything illegal? Hell, it already happens all the time. What’s next are the cops going to start pulling people over and asking to see their papers……..oh wait.
    The time to start worrying about the slippery slope isn’t when your almost at the bottom of the ditch, and it seems we have more hill behind us then in front.

  17. 17.

    just me

    December 21, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    Curiously, the Department of Justice shows no increase in the rate of juvenile arrests since 1980. In fact, there was a peak in 1996, then a slow decline. In 2009, there were 5,804 arrests for every 100,000 individuals aged 10 to 17. The majority of arrests are for property crime/theft.
    I don’t know enough kids to really make any assertions, but of those I do know, few have been arrested. Those that have committed crimes involving theft and drugs. (Some quite serious). I do know that in my state , young drivers are treated very severely (although rarely arrested.)

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