You're worth real money when youre busted. For example, making phony IDs, the state gets paid more than $150 per day by the federal government for every day youre in custody, since the federal government does not have pretrial detention facilities, i.e., jails. One of my clients was tossed into a cell with 10 other federal inmates. That’s 11 inmates at $150 per day, or $1,650 per cell per day.
Understandably, officials think of jails as hotels that can be profitably filled. All the people around you—cops, guards, clerks, bailiffs, judges, lawyers, probation officers, social workers—are making a good living off you. Once arrested, you enter the criminal justice plantation. You're there to work, that gets state and city employees paid.
All you get is a place to flop and crummy food. Like a slave, you're branded with your owner’s mark. Your fingerprints, case number, social security number, photograph, and description (and, soon, DNA) are filed.
Even when youre released on probation, you're still on the plantation. You and your home can be searched at any time. You have to sign away the right to a warrant and judicial review of searches as a condition of probation. If probation officers so decide, they can administer drug tests and strip-search and body-cavity search you at any time. Probation ofhcers are not, repeat not, social workers. They're outdoor jailers. And you're paying them! Big dollars monthly in probation charges!
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you can wander into the criminal justice plantation even without getting arrested! field interrogation reports (FI) Patrol cops are required to make notes about everyone they talk to when they respond to a call or make a street stop. They note your name and address, your appearance, what youre wearing, and where you're going.Let’s say you encounter police. They stop their cruiser, call you over, ask for your ID, and quiz you about where you live and where youre going—all typical questions whose answers go into FI reports. Let’s suppose you're wearing a red T-shirt, blue jeans, and a baseball cap. All this gets noted down into the computer system becomes accessible to every cop in the city
if a crime is committed later in your neighborhood, by a guy about your size wearing a red T-shirt, jeansPost too long. Click here to view the full text.