July 4, 2007

Prison abolition and Paris Hilton

Posted by Jeremy Bearer-Friend at 12:01AM

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You'd think the anti-prison activists would be cheering. Never in the history of California's prison expansion has there been such undivided media attention on the corruption of California courts, cops and jails. For 24-hours-a-day, for over 23 days, every local TV station, online news source or print paper was reporting on the inconsistent, illegal and incompetent practices of the LA County jail system. All thanks to one Paris Hilton.

The story they told was a simple one: rich, white people are treated differently by California law enforcement than the rest of us. And at a time when California is spending more money on prisons and jails than ever before, when more women and people of color are locked up than ever before in US history, this story couldn't be more timely.

Most readers of Wiretap are familiar with this gruesome state of affairs. The prison industrial complex is present in our everyday lives, at the root of so many of the problems we spend our lives fighting against. But it's not a story we expect to find running 24-7 on CNN.

So why wasn't this a media justice victory? Where were the voices of anti-prison activists?

Sadly, another shining opportunity to talk about race and criminal injustice passed us by. The conversation instead deteriorated into a rabid tough-on-crime frenzy, with newscasters presuming audiences want bigger jails full of more and more non-violent offenders.

In a bizarre reaction to the obvious corruption of the LA County Jail system, most commentators called for an expansion of the reach of the jail, rather than questioning the jail to begin with.

If the audience for these broadcasts knows the jail is corrupt, and if they all agree that they've seen this corruption play out over and over again on TV loops across the world, why are they demanding that we give more credence and authority to this corrupt system? Why is there any trust in these jails at all?

Before the next celebrity rainstorm drowns out any other news story, we have an opportunity to write about the real problem of imprisonment in California.

The real scandal here is that women of color are the fastest growing population of incarcerated people in the US, yet this story is never told or reported on. The current media frenzy over Paris demonstrates only the apartheid state we currently live under, with a media that is absolutely uninterested in reporting on the mass imprisonment of people of color.

Decarceration has been a central goal of anti-prison work in California. That Paris had the opportunity to remain in contact with her community and recover from her substance abuse amongst her family is an opportunity that all addicts should be able to enjoy.

The reaction to her story is not to lock up everyone for longer and prevent addicts from accessing treatment. The solution is to shut down system that has devastated communities of color.