We at Wonkette have been pretty excited about Louisiana lately, what with revealing that they are one of the more awful states of the union in terms of infant mortality and life expectancy and whatnot, and also because they will teach about the Loch Ness monster in science class (so long as they don’t have to teach about it to MUSLIM children because that would just be going too far). Turns out we were so fascinated with Louisiana that we forgot about Mississippi, which is really doubling down on the fight against education these days, what with their “school-to-prison” pipeline that incarcerates students for minor infractions at school. You will be shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that African American students are over-represented in this disciplinary strategy. (The disciplinary strategy of sending children to jail when they get suspended from school!)
Officials in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, have operated “a school-to-prison pipeline” that violates the constitutional rights of juveniles by incarcerating them for alleged school disciplinary infractions, some as minor as defiance, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
“Students most affected by this system are African-American children and children with disabilities,” the Justice Department said. […]
In 2009, the Lauderdale County Juvenile Detention Facility in Meridian was the target of a federal class-action lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center that alleged children and teens were … “crammed into small, filthy cells and tormented with the arbitrary use of Mace as a punishment for even the most minor infractions — such as ‘talking too much’ or failing to sit in the ‘back of their cells,’” the center said in a statement.
First of all, we don’t know why everyone is getting so upset. Mace is like pepper spray, which is a food product, essentially. And really, all they were doing was trying to keep children SAFE, don’t you want them to be safe? In jail?
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And I thought my high school was a prison….
I really like my naga jolokia essential food product, but I don't like it in my eyes. Or near my junk. Don't ask how I know not to like these things.
Good job Mississippi. I always like when I shit talk on the south and then you go and prove me right.
At the risk of sounding like a jerk, the "Coolhand Luke" quote is "What we have here is failure to communicate." No "a."
Similar to Mr. Obama never said Bill Ayers was "just a guy in the neighborhood." Sen. McCain added the "just."
Sometimes it just grates to read a wrong quote…As you were…
"…children and teens were … 'crammed into small, filthy cells and tormented with the arbitrary use of Mace as a punishment…"
As the owner of teenage children, this sounds completely reasonable.
Is that the spray, or the spiked metal ball on a chain? http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/11998315_mace…
They need to be allowed to secede retroactively.
The police department command staff and officers characterized their agency as a "taxi service" for the schools and juvenile detention facility, without assessing the circumstances of the alleged charges against students, the Justice Department said.
Well, what did those kids expect when they didn't give the cabbie a tip? Didn't they ever see Taxi Driver? Hell, they were lucky it was just mace…
JFC…
Wow, it's a good thing the Police raised such a loud, sustained stink over the injustice, then.
I bet they count Mace as a vegetable, like ketchup, for their school lunches.
Down the hatch…
Mississippi is also the fattest city in America.
That city's so fat, it's practically a whole state.
if they started putting capsaicin on all their food, i bet they'd eat less. really, this program is just the "tough love" version of michelle obama's anti-obesity movement.
Well, that doesn't seem to have stopped folks in Louisiana from eating?
Look, the Corrections Corporation of Amerikka needs to fill those beds. Who better than misbehaving blah children?
Lemme guess, the Lauderdale County Juvenile Detention Facility is a for profit prison, right?
First thing I looked up.
Guess what?
Lauderdale County Juvenile Center in Meridian, MS is a private company categorized under Juvenile Detention Centers.
why do you hate america? for profit=great jobs (jailing black youths) jobs=america. so, then, profit=america to the second power or some such thing
My first thought, too. I won't look it up, because I already believe it.
It's American Exceptionalism is what it is.
I read about it in my school books back in England when I was a whippersnapper.
I understand at this point in the discussion I'm supposed to chant, "USA, USA, USA!!" Amirite?
I can't wait to find out which school official is connected to the for-profit prison.
Ah, Mississippi, the Arizona of the South. Except it's a wet heat.
Ah, Mississippi, the Mississippi of the USA.
Mississippi, the unthinking persons North Korea…
So they take black people out of school and put them in jail for no real reason without a trial? The GOP just came in their pants.
And they are headed to DC.
Someone's religious freedom to put uppity ("talks too much") blahs in jail is about to be discriminated against…
Those jails aren't gonna fill themselves, Missy!1!
Stupid libtards and their socialist fourth amendment…
Sounds like a head start plan for career criminals. Wtg!
Yeah, funny that when you treat normal people like criminals they become more likely to turn to actual crime.
Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline
Incarceration begins at conception!!!111!11
I had to drug my warden and have an accomplice cut her to escape the uterine prison.
That is so sad.
Say, you know who else liked to cram minorities into small filthy cells and torture them for the flimsiest of reasons… ?
The Nawab of Bengal?
Islam Karimov?
Mitt Romney?
CCA?
Franco?
A group that nobody expects?
Bill Lumbergh ?
John Yoo?
Lyndie England.
At least one of the judges, Vel Young, is African American.
Clarence Thomas is, by all accounts, also African American.
He'll never to go jail, he doesn't speak out of turn.
Are judges elected there?
Any possible chance the demons running Lauderdale County Juvenile Center made any donations to Young or any of his buddies?
A "school-to-prison" pipeline? WTF?
I had a friend who had a really rambunctious kid when we were both a lot younger. When he was about two or three, she's feed him lunch and put him in bed for a nap. He'd get up. She'd put him back down. He'd get up again, and be all obnoxious. Eventually she'd spank him a little and he'd cry and that would wear him out and he'd go to sleep. She looked wearily at me after describing this and said "Obviously, it would be much easier to feed him lunch and immediately give him a spanking".
But she was funning, dammit.
"students are incarcerated for disciplinary issues as minor as "dress code violations, flatulence, profanity, and disrespect."
We'd all be in jail in Mississippi.
How the fuck do you know about my shit-stank flatulence?
OH! You mean my profanity. Carry on.
Especially me!
Sometimes it would be a capital offense for me. And I'll bet that Haley Barbour would be counting up some jail time for that.
"How 'bout some more beans, Mr. Barbour?"
"I'd say we guys have had enough."
"More mother-fucking tea, vicar? Sorry, didn't mean to fart in my gimp suit"…
Because if there's any American institution that truly commands respect, it's high school.
That wasn't me, it was my dog!
Explains why I went straight to jail without passing Go or collecting $200, I guess.
Whatt about buttsecks?
Hell, some of us would have been executed on the spot.
In fairness, Meridian is like Alabama, only with slightly more unregenerate racists.
Hard to believe, I know.
"First of all, we don’t know why everyone is getting so upset."
Oh. So this is one of those 'feel good' pieces, then.
I wonder if any of them kids got jailed for bagging some honky's groceries against their creed.
I think Julia ratted them out…
Hey, Mississippi used to arrest black people for even trying to learn to read. Waiting until they actually get inside the school building is, alas, a progressive step for them.
More proof that we need to defund education. Throw the baby out with the bath water (and into jail?) I say! This is probably the fault of teachers unions, also
And here I thought high school was already too hellish as it is.
Yeah, if I went to high school in Mississippi, they probably would have given me the death penalty, or at least water boarded me. Way to make nuns look reasonable, fattest state ever
I think these Mississippi schools are tied with Sunnydale High for worst high schools to attend in America, and they don't have a hellmouth as an excuse.
"Detention" she said, not "detention facility."
Everybody knows about Mississippi…GOD DAMN!
You're on a roll Extemporanus. Another feather in your cap today for Nina.
♫♬ I'mmm a Wonkee Doodle Dannndy… ♫♬
Goddamn Awesome. You and Nina.
Man, if they're incarcerating people for flatulence, they may as well bury me UNDER the prison…
Good for Missippi, teaching their nears early on how the rest of their lives will be lived: thrown in jail by the whites for whatever arbitrary reason comes most easily to mind at the time.
This program will only work if it is a for-profit, privately run jail.
It is.
Jerb creators!
Invisible bitchslappin' hand of Free Market Justice!
The invisible hand is the Chuck Norris of the free market.
Why do people still live there?
Poverty?
Air conditioning has a lot to answer for..
It's the only place my Brother-Husband can find work. You wouldn't want us to uproot the entire family of cousin/siblings, would you now?
The reader comments are just sad and stupid. It's classic Southern justice, if you do the crime you do the time mantra. And I suspect they are very excited about those handsome Yankee men who will remove the colored man from the White House.
Two of the best, in my opinion:
Fantastic slippery-slope argument about how flatulent kids will end up killing people
and the obligatory "education is communism" comment
It's hard to have faith in this country sometimes.
I can't tell if my tears are from laughter or uncontrolled sobbing.
A free public school? That would be a terrible idea.
Fuck. I try not to read comments elsewhere, and so I forget for days at a time just how awful some of my countrymen are.
Are they aware of what Rmoney thought was "fun" when he captured one of those Cranbrook longhairs?
those silly Republicans and their fetish for pipelines…
Flush all the toilets at the same time (a felony) and learn, first-hand, that Mississippi is a Death Penalty state.
I've said it here before: Alabama's state motto–"Thank God for Mississippi."
Flatulence, profanity, and disrespect"? Sounds like an afternoon reading/commenting on Wonkette. Today we are all Meridian MS school children.
I'm sending them to pick you up, right now!
Well when life gives you lemons, build a giant prison industrial complex and make lemonade.
I can hear the discussion now: "Does mace count as a condiment or a vegetable? There's some federal money on the table if we get it right in the grant request."
Ryan will block grant the Medicaid program. This will allow Mississippi to channel that money to the Corrections Corporation of Amerikka for child care (with hard labor) for the young poors and to the Hospital Corporation of Amerikka for hospice (death) care for the old poor.
Let's nit get so high and mighty, considering this was in my backyard:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/13…
you have a court room in your backyard? Damn, that beats the hell out of a swingset…
Now if I could just get Dick Wolf to leave. . .
Pennsylvania: the Mississippi of the Mid-Atlantic.
Where else is this occurring, right now, without us knowing?
((sigh))
i bet that dude is going to be having an awesome next 28 years.
I'm sad to say I grew up there. I taught the asshole's son, too. Kid was a bit of a dick, but you can't really expect much from a child with that as a role model.
I'm glad to say that I no longer live there.
Well, it is Pittbsurgh and Philadelphia with Alabama down the middle.
"Mace is like pepper spray, which is a food product, essentially."
Just like ketchup.
Except it's illegal to squirt people in the face with ketchup.
And mustard gas!
And Ricin.
Oops, now I'm on the DHS watchlist.
Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock Rock and Roll Prison!!
Of course these Mississippi fellows are NOT racists. Nope, not at all.
And they will elect their presidential candidate in November solely on the basis of merit, not of color skin. Because they are not racists.
Geeze. This. is. so. incredibly. sad.
My new T-shirt:
Mississippi teaches the 3 "R"s.
Rmoney
Ryan
Retards
Just saying, your turn Texas.
“crammed into small, filthy cells…"
Sounds like a job for a school kid – cleaning prison cells after school! Amirite, Newt?
'Cause putting juveniles in prison ensures they'll never ever want to become more dangerous criminals in the future! It's Kommon Sence!
No wonder in Alabama people console themselves by saying "Thank God for Mississippi."
No snark for this. Can someone fetch my Louisville Slugger?
I don't get it. When something like this happens in Uganda or Burma or Libya, Amnesty International floods their capitals with letters of outrage, and begs the UN to condemn them. But are we seeing letters flood into Jackson? No, we are not. Shouldn't we treat all Third World crackpot governments with equal contempt?
Actually, Amnesty does go after the U.S.
Yeah, but I was talking about Mississippi.
Still beats sending kids to Penn State. But just barely.
All this, just to be sure them pomofo's won't be votin' once they're 18.
Hell, they spend 'nuff time in prison, they won't be able to count to 18… Heheheh…
Coming up next, the Ludovico technique. "I'm singing in the rain…just singing in the rain…"
Allow me to draw your attention back over here to Louisiana for a second. Besides Nessie being real and evolution a myth, what other lies do you suppose will be taught using public money under the voucher program?
How about:
"God used the Trail of Tears to bring religion to Indian tribes and greed for their land had nothing to do with it."
"[T]he Ku Klux Klan was [and presumably still is?] a benevolent society [which] 'tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies.'"
This last courtesy of Bob Jones University Press, of course.
In Arizona we have the school-back-to-the-rez plan and it's working so well we have the highest drop-out rate in the nation. So take that, Mississippi. You need moar Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Reconstruction – This time, finish the job.
fuck these fucking fuckers. in a jail cell, with a mace can
Sometimes I just can't think of a single funny thing to say. There's no humor here. The jack-booted thugs are in every town, flying their flags and oppressing in the name of freedom and Jesus, and it's only a matter of time before they come for all of us.
Well, that'll larn 'em….
I hear the Mississippi tourism bureau will be advertising in the RNC convention program –
Visit Mississippi
The Republican Utopia
I think we would all be safer in jail, especially a juvenile detention facility in Mississippi.
This is what I've been saying. Privatize the prisons, then privatize the schools and eliminate that pesky middle man.
I looked this place up. According to the county website "The Center is funded by the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors." Note that it is not RUN by the county. The website "Manta: Where Small Business Grows" tells us that this facility "is a private company categorized under Juvenile Detention." In short, once more we have an instance of the joys of the for-profit prison industry, where more prisoners means more profit. Three whoopees for capitalism. Who are the owners of this "small business?" Where can they best be incarcerated in a way that will leave them with a lasting understanding of the error of their ways? Or must we leave these "job creators" alone to pursue their profits elsewhere?
Wonkette, please. Mississippi don't do nuthin' they every thought up they own selves. Why, up here in Pennsyltucky, we pracklly invented that ol' pipeline. Din't none a yall every hear a the Luzerne cash-for-kids job-creatin' scam? Them ol' judges packed off a passel a yunguns to they buddies' joovenile facilities for various criminal activities such as sassin' grown-ups and lookin' guilty. The buddies got brandy-new payin' customers, and the judges got a sweet $2.6 million for keepin' the gentry safe from they neighbors chirrens. 'Course, ol' Tommy Corbett comes along and signs a couple new laws this year that "juvenile defendants be represented by counsel in most cases and that juvenile court judges state in open court the reasoning behind their sentencing decisions"—on account a since he was way too busy treein' Democrats before the election, he just din't have time to look into sumpin' like this that went on under his nose for 5 years while he was Attorney General, but he was awful sorry about that and now here he comes to fix it up. Gaaw-lee, ain't it sumpin', lettin' them kids have lawyers an' all?
So you can see how I couldn't let the dishonor a my fine Commonwealth be overshadowed by those shitkickin' Mississippi-come-latelies. You a day late and a dolla short, 'Sip!
Yes, but do the prisons have Arbeit-Macht-Frei signs over the entrances?
Mississippi still have work gangs? that prison thing seems pretty sissy.
Goddamn Mississippi, Mississippi goddamn.
Mississippi is like a veteran hooker; it's always burning.
At least they get their daily requirement of vegetables serving in a spray form.
Random question, but where do the two or three white, non-Dixicrat Democrats live in Mississippi?
Mogadishu looks on Jackson with envy. Sharia law? Hell, I'm afraid of Mississippi law.
Flatulence is an Offense in that Jurisdiction? If I lived there I would never see daylight.
An unbearably religious douchehat with no conception of its own irrelevance?
Oh, wait. Never mind.
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