Labor On Demand: Dispatching the Urban Poor
A public lecture by Gretchen Purser, Syracuse University

Sponsored by the Dean’s Speakers series on Fiscal Crisis and the Fate of the Criminal Justice System

A public lecture by Mecke Nagel, SUNY Cortland

Paper available here.

Homeland Insecurity and Border Policing in New York

A public talk by Ute Ritz-Deutch, SUNY Cortland

Press & Sun-Bulletin – Binghamton, N.Y.
Viewpoints
February 7, 2011, A10

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to close adult prisons and youth facilities has
generated a lot of heat. Prison reformers have celebrated the prospect,
while politicians and correction officers’ unions have protested loudly.

As college professors who have taught in prisons, worked in small prison
towns, mentored youth and studied the sociology of this issue, we think the
current debates seem to ignore the essential fact that prisons have very
little to do with public safety and very much to do with powerful political
and economic interests that have pitted disadvantaged communities against
each other.
And therein lies the tragedy of today’s discussions, as those who vastly
expanded the criminal justice system now propose to reduce its financial
burden by abandoning those they have drawn into it: urban black and Latino
communities, primarily downstate, and predominantly white prison towns
upstate.

Numerous studies and mountains of data demonstrate that it is
counterproductive to send more kids to distant detention centers and to
create new laws that criminalize and then sentence non- violent adult
offenders, especially drug users, to mandatory and extraordinarily expensive
long-term prison sentences.

Most prisons in New York are located in upstate towns far from the cities
from which the majority of prisoners and detained youth come. This is a
legacy of Andrew Cuomo’s father, who built more prisons than any other
governor during the history of the state even as crime rates were low and
already decreasing.

The result was that in the 1990s, New York came to spend more on prisons
than higher education, and imprisoned more young black and Latino men every
year for drug offenses than received undergraduate, masters and doctoral
degrees from all SUNY campuses combined.

What this system created wasn’t just a financial disaster but a social and
political one. Behind the growth in prison beds was a vast new criminal
justice complex that reached from police and metal detectors in schools to a
new set of courts, judges, prosecutors and police on the streets of our
cities. While urban centers and schools were stripped of young black and
Latino men, upstate communities being abandoned by industrial firms were
promised jobs.

Our data here tell the story. In analyzing all rural prison building
nationwide, we find that the average prison town over that last 40 years has
actually experienced an increase in unemployment. However, the average town
that built a prison in New York between 1989-98 gained a 3 percent bump in
employment.

What Gov. Mario Cuomo delivered, his son now proposes to take away. We may
celebrate this; closing unneeded prisons and youth facilities is good public
policy. But what are small towns to do as scarce jobs disappear? And what
will urban communities do as troubled youth and uneducated men return?

Simply closing prisons is no solution to a much bigger crisis of the
criminal justice complex and the poor economic development prospects of
urban and rural communities. Like the closing of parts of the
military-industrial complex in the past, a large transition and job-creation
program is needed to address the closure of the prison-industrial complex.
Savings from decreased funding on prisons need to be spent on education,
treatment programs and support for new industries. To do less is to court
disaster.

Martin and Eason are professors at Binghamton University and Arizona State
University, respectively.

Militarizing the University

A public lecture by Hugh Gusterson of George Mason University

Hugh Gusterson is an anthropologist with expertise in nuclear culture, international security, and the anthropology of science. He is the author of including Nuclear Rites (UC Press, 1996) and People of the Bomb (Minnesota, 2004) and co-editor of Cultures of Insecurity (Minnesota, 1999) and Why America’s Top Pundits Are Wrong (UC Press, 2005)

by William Martin

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20101102/VIEWPOINTS02/11020306/1120/VIEWPOINTS/State-detention-system-wrong-for-upstate-and-at-risk-youths

Last month, another young man — Alexis Javier Cirino-Rodriguez — died after being restrained in a nearby youth detention facility. Reports of rampant abuse and deaths in detention have led in recent years to separate federal and state investigations of the state’s youth facilities.

From these have come a common recommendation that facilities be closed and social services be expanded in troubled youths’ home communities. The day before Cirino-Rodriguez’s death, the New York Times called upon the governor to continue to close facilities.

This is important to people across the Southern Tier; most youth facilities, like adult prisons, are located in upstate New York. This has led many to rally behind retaining upstate detention centers and prisons.

Meanwhile most in these facilities have come from downstate black and Latino communities.

It remains the case, however, that these facilities simply do not work well for most “at risk” youth. Even at the enormous cost of $200,000 per youth per year, most youth sent to them are not successful in leaving the facility-to-prison pipeline, while the facilities are often woefully understaffed and dangerous for staff and youth alike.

Yet what those who wisely call for closure of these facilities often fail to acknowledge — much less guarantee — is that adequate assistance will be provided to youth in their home communities as well as to the upstate communities that have come to depend upon them for employment.

Much money will be saved by closing facilities and prisons, but, as in the closing of mental health facilities a generation ago, poor youth are most likely to be dumped onto the streets and into homeless shelters — and thus be diverted back into the prison pipeline as adults.

What we need are policies that ensure assistance to those who need it, especially the youth. This also must include upstate communities, which shouldn’t have to endure another generation of a dysfunctional system that leaves the northern part of the state playing the invidious role of a plantation for the problems of downstate New York.

Given the significant financial gains from closing prisons and youth facilities, we can do much better — and must for all the youth and communities involved.

Martin is a professor of sociology at Binghamton University.

A talk by Peter Kwong of Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Peter Kwong, a frequent contributor to The Nation and the International Herald Tribune, is the author of Chinese America: The Untold Story of America’s Oldest New Community; Forbidden Workers: Chinese Illegal Immigrants and American Labor; The New Chinatown; and Chinatown, New York: Labor and Politics 1930-1950.

Sponsored by the Harpur College Dean’s Speakers Series on Cultures of Control, the Sociology Department, and the Asian and Asian-American Studies Department.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=153048341403053

Welcoming Remarks: Mayor Matthew T. Ryan

Panelists:
Renan Salgado, Farmworker Legal Services of New York
Lubna Chaudhry, Binghamton University
Imam Kasim Kopuz, Johnson City
Mary Jo Dudley, Cornell Farmworker Program

Sponsored by: Binghamton Justice Projects, Harpur College Dean’s
Speakers Series Binghamton University (BU), Latin American and
Caribbean Studies Program (BU).

Cosponsors: Binghamton University Food Co-Op, Binghamton School of the Americas Watch, Broome County Peace Action, Human Development Department (BU), Malik Fraternity Inc., Muslim Student Association (BU), People’s Press, Sociology Department (BU), Student Action Collective (BU), St. James Parish of Johnson City (Peace & Justice Committee), Two Rivers Bookstore, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton (Social Justice Committee), WE SPEAK BU.