Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Law Enforcement Page 1 of 2

The Labor Shortage And the New Criminalization

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On August 12, 2021

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The level of stupid in what passes for “discourse” in the Western world never ceases to amaze. Employers are shocked that they are having trouble filling low wage jobs and blame enhanced unemployment benefits, but even when half the states stop the unemployment benefits, still have trouble filling those jobs.

Supposedly a little over 600K people have died in the US from Covid (the actual toll is higher). The largest group is old people, driven by psychopaths like Cuomo killing them either deliberately or through vast criminal negligence.

But Covid has also hit the poor disproportionately, and it hit kitchen workers hard. If you’ve ever even seen a restaurant kitchen, let alone worked in one, you know why: they’re cramped, generally hotter than hell, and people have to be in each other’s faces.

While modern economics in its macro form is essentially astrology (but let’s not insult astrology), the core insight of marginal economics, that it’s the next customer, or widget, or worker that matter: the marginal cost, is important. If you go from having 2 people apply for every job to one person for every 2 jobs, the price point changes massively.

So there less people willing to work shit jobs at minimum wage (or below, for waiters, etc…)

It has been so long since the bottom end of the economy was hot in most places that few employers even remember it. The Massachussets Miracle of the 90s, for example. Local resource booms, etc… But for the majority of people there haven’t been tight markets for low-end workers since the 70s. In such markets you have to compete for workers; they set the prices,  you don’t.

Probably should have cared about poor people dying, if  you wanted to keep your wages down. Hard to have much sympathy for employers, who seem to have mostly not given a damn.

But most employers don’t realize that excess labor is something that was very carefully engineered, over two generations now, so that they would have low wages. It isn’t “natural” (or unnatural, to be fair) it’s a social choice. Cheap labor isn’t God-given, and it varies by place and time.

Meanwhile we have two other interesting events.

1) The decriminalization of marijuana, which is going to lead to a lot less people in prison.

2) The criminalization of homelessness, which is going to lead to a lot more people in prison.

The prison industry is a good gig for a lot of firms and people and even still provides a lot of jobs to towns that would otherwise have very few. You charge people huge rates to make calls, for anything in the commissary, even for books these days. Meanwhile you pay them a couple bucks a day to work, and on the back end, if you’re a private prison, you charge the government.

Any slowdown in the flow of prisoners is a slowdown in profits (and prisoners died in large numbers to Covid, too.)

America, fuck’yeah!

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Protect Yourself from Political Violence in the Age of Facial Recognition and Doxxing

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On August 31, 2020

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We’re seeing a rise in right-wing militia violence, condoned by police. Police themselves are already using facial recognition to identify protesters.

American authoritarianism is likely to follow the Latin American model, which Americans taught in the School of the Americas, and which they have backed for over a century in many countries. It will be combined with elements of how Israelis treat Palestinians, because Israelis train American police departments.

In this model, most of the beatings, “punishment” rapes, torture, and murder are done by militias. The police never catch them (and some are members, as they are already), and, of course, co-operate with them.

This is similar to what’s already going on; various law enforcement seizing people off the street without showing ID, into unmarked vans and cars, except that it’ll be private citizens doing it.

Then, they’ll do to you as they please, and no one will help.

Don’t think that if you’re a squishy liberal rather than a left-winger that’ll stop them. They hate feminists and so on just as much as the left, and all my life I’ve read their screeds about how they want to rape them or hang them from lamp-posts.

They’re increasingly being given the nod, and at some point, this is likely to start happening in earnest.

Don’t think Biden will save you. He might slow this down slightly, but he and Harris are extremely harsh on public disorder, and their administration will only make economic and political conditions worse, creating the grounds for the next authoritarian right-winger, who will learn from Trump but be far more disciplined.

The US’s only real chance of avoiding this future is a “Hail, Mary” — something like AOC winning the presidency in ’24 or ’28.

Might happen, but don’t bet on it.

So, some simple guidelines:

  • Wear a mask when protesting, always.
  • Don’t bring your phone with you.
  • Don’t take pictures of protesters without masks, so they can’t be identified and doxxed. The ability to do both doesn’t just belong to cops — private individuals can do it just fine, and in any case, cops will pass on information to their buddies in the militias.
  • Use a pseudonym online if you’re seriously left-wing or liberal. This is especially important for women.
  • Make some efforts to manage your digital footprint, so you’re harder to dox.
  • Take some precautions in your physical life to secure yourself, possibly including living with people who will fight for you (and you for them).
  • Prepare to leave where you are and go somewhere else. Somewhere else in the US, perhaps, or somewhere outside the US. Remember that what is actually mostly untraceable is cash.

Perhaps I’m overly concerned or even alarmist. I hope so. But I’d rather give this warning, have some people take extra precautions and not need them, than not give the warning, and see people hurt or killed who might have avoided the fate.

I don’t like what I’m seeing. The right has been itching to really punish the left and liberals for a long time, and all it really requires is that authorities give them the nod and step aside.

That process has begun. It may be walked back, it may not.

Beware.

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Manufacturing Violent People

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On January 11, 2018

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One of the largely unacknowledged problems of prison is that it manufactures bad people.

When someone is arrested, it is often a traumatic event. It’s backed up by the promise of violence, and even death if someone resists.

Police are often brutal, and, once in prison, one is surrounded by dangerous people. The least sign of weakness will make one into a victim, so one must pretend to be tough, no matter what. Months to years of living like that, plus the real possibility of new trauma from rape, assault, or battery, along with the certainty of living in near constant fear will likely give the person trauma and rage issues, and teach them that the best way not to be a victim is to be a victimizer.

When they get out…

This is made worse by the fact that once you’ve got a record, good jobs are largely closed off from you. Even a lot of bad jobs are, as so many employers do criminal records checks now that it is easy.

Poor, traumatized, and used to violence as a solution to problems; having been taught that admitting any weakness will just get you victimized, you’re very likely to turn to crime and even violent crime.

Prison in all Anglo countries created worse, harder criminals. By making a lot of poverty illegal, by locking up junkies (who should be in for treatment), and by disproportionately locking up minorities for crimes for which whites tend to skate (most drug use crimes), we tend to create the very monsters we think we are protecting ourselves from. And when we don’t create them, we make them worse.

There is another possibility: Norway has half the recidivism rate of the US because they treat their prisoners well. They don’t throw them into a situation with a great threat of violence, including rape, instead they genuinely try for rehabilitation.

Hurting people who have already been hurt makes them worse, not better, in most cases. It teaches them that violence is the way of the world, and that the strong do what they will to the weak. Victims become victimizers.

This is a choice. A lot of the people we lock up don’t need to be locked up: They have committed no crime of violence. There are other ways to deal with them, from medical help to removing their ability to do harm (like forbidding bankers to ever be involved with the financial industry ever again, seizing their ill-gotten wealth, and garnishing their income until they have paid back the billions they destroyed through their fraudulent actions. No money, no position = no power. But they can have good jobs which don’t pay more than median wages.)

And once they are in the system, we could choose not to treat them horribly, and not put them in a position where the other inmates will brutalize them further. This can be done, because other societies do it.

If we choose to perpetuate the violence, it is because, like Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court, we think rape is part of the punishment.

Which, to be clear, makes us rapists. If you support criminals being raped, you’re little different from some asshole cheering a rapist on, screaming, “He has it coming!”

Perhaps, having tried cruelty for most of our history, we might consider trying a bit of kindness and a lot of “no harm”?

At the least, even if it doesn’t work (and the evidence is that it does), we wouldn’t be complicit in generating more violence.

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Police Now Steal More than Burglars

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On January 30, 2016

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According to Harpers, in 2014 police seized more assets than burglars stole.

From Harpers Police Seizures

This is trickle-down kleptocracy in action. America is ruled by thieves, con artists, and corrupt officials (even if much of what they do is legal).

Police can generally seize any asset they say they think might have been used in a crime. They do not need a warrant, approval from a judge, or anything else. To get that property back, you must take them to court. In most cases, it isn’t worth it. This is one reason a lot of people in corrupt areas (or who have darker skin) don’t carry large amounts of cash.  It’s not the criminals one needs to worry about, it’s the cops.

But they can take anything, including your car, boat, and even home.

This is punishment without trial, and it is dead routine.

Welcome to your dystopia.

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The Vast Injustice of Linking Gun Purchases to the No-Fly List

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On December 7, 2015

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So, Obama wants Congress to make it so that people on the No-Fly List can’t buy guns.

This is a terrible idea, and if you are for it, you are a terrible person.

The No-Fly List itself is a terrible idea. The basis of justice is that you cannot be punished without being found guilty of the  charges against you. You wind up on the No-Fly list without ever having a trial where you can see the evidence against you and face your accusers.

The details are shady as hell, with any number of government apparatchniks able to put you on the list with no review…but I don’t want to get into them, or into how many people are on it, or any of the rest of that.

Why?

Because it doesn’t matter. It’s a punishment enforced without conviction in a trial where you can face your accusers and see the evidence against you. Ideally, in Common Law countries, this should the option to be tried by a jury of your peers.

I am willing to make an “imminent harm” exception, which lasts for a few days, at which point a person must be charged or released–and, if charged, a trial date must be set in a timely manner.

The No-Fly list is only one part of the American justice system that is corrupt if held to this standard. Another example is Civil Forfeiture, in which police can seize your property without ever proving you committed a crime. This practice is now responsible for more property loss than actual theft. The fact that the Treasury Department is able to freeze assets due to RICO statutes before a trial is unjust. The same goes for anti-terrorism statutes that freeze assets.

All of this stuff is evil as hell. Want to punish someone by taking away their rights, whether it’s to own a gun, fly on a plane, or have money? Prove it in a court, with a sufficient preponderance of legal evidence, the ability to see that evidence, to face those who accuse you, and so on.

Obama is wrong on this, but then Obama arrogates the right to kill both foreigners and Americans without trial, so this should hardly be surprising.

This is fundamentally evil; it is one of the main things that America was founded to oppose and it is vastly unjust.

The entire American “justice” system needs to be overhauled. Plea bargaining needs to be removed entirely (yes, the system can run without plea bargaining), trials must occur in a timely manner, and everyone must have competent counsel (which would mean barring rich defendants from paying any more for private counsel than public defenders receive).

These are the requirements for JUSTICE.  It is something America, and a depressing amount of Americans, don’t even understand any longer.

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The Enforcer Class

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On June 10, 2015

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If you are a left-winger who wants to, in effect, overthrow a racist oligarchical system, the police are not your friends. Nor, need I point out, are corrections officers. Nor is most of the court system.

These people belong to the enforcer class. Police and corrections officers are paid not just in money but in license to brutalize. In most cases, they can get away with beating people up and even killing them. To stop a police officer from skating on murder requires riots, as a rule, and even that doesn’t usually work. The FBI has cleared themselves of every killing an FBI officer has performed for decades.

This is not incidental, this is not an accident; this is how our lords and rulers want the enforcement system to run.

Police are selected and trained and socialized to either become thugs or to cover up thuggery. Imbeciles will say things like “not all cops,” but it is virtually unheard of for the “good cops” to inform on the bad cops–they keep their mouths shut. This is wise on their part, of course, because the vast majority of police would turn on them in seconds if they were to betray the blue wall of silence.

America, per capita, imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Many of these people are non-violent drug offenders who used a drug which is less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes. Solitary confinement is widespread, prison rape and battery are widespread, and there is plenty of evidence of prison guard collusion in said rape and battery.

If you are an African American male, you are far more likely to have spent time in prison than in university.

And police lie routinely about those they arrest. How many people are in prison who didn’t commit the crime of which they are accused? How many would have been convicted if police hadn’t concealed exculpatory evidence? The answers to these questions are unknown for obvious reasons, but I would stake a great deal that it is a non-trivial number.

All of this assumes the accused even had a trial–most people in prison have never had one: They plead out. That’s absolutely not an indication of guilt, it is an indication that they couldn’t afford to fight the system. Justice is very expensive, and prosecuting attorneys advise defendants against going to trial. If people lose (which, again, doesn’t  necessarily indicate guilt), they’ll get book thrown at them.

The American “justice” system cannot operate without plea bargains. The state arrests too many people for that. Hardly anybody gets justice, people get railroaded to prison without a trial, based on the word of police who are willing to lie, and once they are felons, their lives are permanently destroyed.

The people who run this system are not your friends. They do not like you. They enjoy the authority they have, and if you “disrespect a cop,” even if you’re firmly within your rights, if they think they can get away with it, they will fuck you up, enjoy it, and firmly believe that you deserve it. Then they’ll lie about it.

Not your friends. Not your allies. The hard fist of the oligarchy, the boot stamping on your face over and over again.

If you do not understand this you are living in a fantasy land and delusional in the face of real, hard power.

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As Baltimore Riots

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On April 27, 2015

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I don’t have a great deal to say about this. I’ll simply note that if you shove peoples faces into the concrete enough, it’s not strange that they will riot. Given the well documented rate at which police have been killing African-Americans (and getting away with it, in most cases), well—Baltimore is a city with a long tradition of poverty and police violence in any case.

I’m not going to wring my hands about this. It’s unfortunate, but those who want peace must work for justice, as Pope Paul VI once noted. Instead of just condemning the rioting, the middle and upper classes might bear in mind that those lower on the totem pole, and especially Blacks, live a very different life than them, one in which the police are a constant oppressive force which appears completely unaccountable.

(I will note, again, that rioters need to get it through their heads to take their rioting to the rich areas of town. Rioting in your own backyard is not particularly productive.)

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This ain’t Wonderland, this is Ferguson, Missouri, antechamber of Hell

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On February 10, 2015

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Conditions in the Ferguson city jail:

“They are kept in overcrowded cells; they are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap; they are subjected to the constant stench of excrement and refuse in their congested cells; they are surrounded by walls smeared with mucus and blood; they are kept in the same clothes for days and weeks without access to laundry or clean underwear; they step on top of other inmates, whose bodies cover nearly the entire uncleaned cell floor, in order to access a single shared toilet that the city does not clean; they develop untreated illnesses and infections in open wounds that spread to other inmates; they endure days and weeks without being allowed to use the moldy shower; their filthy bodies huddle in cold temperatures with a single thin blanket even as they beg guards for warm blankets; they are not given adequate hygiene products for menstruation; they are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication, even when their families beg to be allowed to bring medication to the jail; they are provided food so insufficient and lacking in nutrition that inmates lose significant amounts of weight; they suffer from dehydration out of fear of drinking foul-smelling water that comes from an apparatus on top of the toilet; and they must listen to the screams of other inmates languishing from unattended medical issues as they sit in their cells without access to books, legal materials, television, or natural light. Perhaps worst of all, they do not know when they will be allowed to leave.”

Ah, America.  The City on the Hill.

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