Prison report: The New Yorker bungles the storyBy Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches run twice a week.
Shame on Ian Frazier and the New Yorker.
Frazier is a writer for that bastion of liberal magazines, and he published an article (puff piece) about cell-phone sniffing dogs in the New Jersey correctional system.
No, it’s not really a puff piece -- “puff pieces” generally don’t have a deleterious affect on people or segments of society, as Frazier’s piece does on inmates throughout the country.
The piece does a great job of allowing New Jersey corrections officials to laud their own efforts to overthrow that most evil beast, the cell phone in prison. The piece goes on to report about New Jersey corrections training its own dogs on how to sniff out cell phones, and the wonderful results of that training, which is the seizure of more than 130 cell phones from us dastardly, evil inmates.
New Jersey corrections ballyhoos itself quite well about how much the agency is saving over states like California, which has contracted cell phone sniffers to come in at exorbitant rates, depleting our already woefully depleted budget. At least the New Jersey corrections folks got something right.
The corrections agency goes on to say how dangerous and threatening all us inmates are with cell phones, how it’s pretty much only gang members and drug dealers who purchase the phones and call out hits on unsuspecting witnesses and victims.
The puff piece, uh, I mean, article, quotes a staff member/trainer who doesn’t want to say what the dogs smell while sniffing for the phones but says it’s something organic.
I say, boink. Lets think about what’s in a cell phone that’s not in a TV or radio -- and that’s organic. Wow, tough one ....
And behind door number one we have the lithium ion battery! Lithium batteries use an organic alkali. Smell your battery, people; it has it’s own distinct and somewhat earthy scent. But I am no scientist and am purely guessing.
Shame on Frazier for not finding out the answers to some key questions -- and shame on the editorial staff of the New Yorker for not pushing Frazier to ask some of these questions:
1. How much does it cost an inmate in New Jersey to make a collect call?
2. How often are inmates allowed to make phone calls?
3. Are the visitors really the main way cells phones are coming in? And how do the inmates deposit cell phones and chargers into their body cavities in the visiting room anyway? (They must have lax visiting standards in New Jersey).
4. How much does a cell phone coast an inmate in New Jersey?
If corrections departments across the country get their heads our of the asses long enough to see that they will not win the cell phone battle as long as the financial incentives are so great for their employees, they would be able to see that maybe allowing and regulating cell phones (see my previous post on this) could provide the security they are looking for.
Ninety nine percent of inmates using cell phones in prison are just tying to stay connected to family, friends and loved ones. Of course there are people doing negative shit with the phones -- but this same stuff can be done on a collect call in a letter or during a visit.
Ian Frazier and the New Yorker, I challenge you to do a real piece covering both sides of this story rather than just the side corrections wants you to hear. Give Tim Redmond a call -- you may be truly enlightened.
Sorry folks -- I had not planned on hitting the cell phone thing so soon again. But I had no choice -- someone has to voice another outlook. Too bad it’s me and not the “real” journalists like Ian Frazier.
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