8/25/23
Newsletter #438
The Crack of Dawn
I try to avoid politics in this newsletter, and I’m not going to make any sort of political statement here. What I’d like to do is to clear up a bit of hypocrisy. Donald Trump was arrested yesterday in Georgia. We all heard many times before this, specifically from the Fulton County Sheriff, that Trump was going to be treated like “any other person.” Of course, that was a lie, and none of the defendants in this case were treated like “any other person,” they were all given preferential treatment. The sheriff wanted to show his egalitarianism by displaying how evenhanded he was, which caused him to shoot off his big mouth. But then he had to have had second thoughts when he realized how bad of an idea it was to show how the criminal booking system in America actually works. Had he shown it properly, he would probably be fired today, though more likely, last night.
Very possibly, the biggest problem in this country is our incarceration rate – which is higher than the next five biggest countries combined – that is inextricably tied to the American criminal justice system. To achieve the highest incarceration rate, ergo, we have the harshest and least forgiving system. Plus, we all happily and blindly accept the blatant lie that we are “innocent until proven guilty.” No. If you get in trouble with the law in this country, you are absolutely guilty unless you can prove you’re innocent, and that’s doubtful. The court will take the word of the cop every single time no matter how blatantly false it is. Courts and cops don’t want justice; they want convictions. And they always get them.
How do I know that Trump wasn’t booked like everybody else? The immediate proof is that he was in and out of the jailhouse in 20 minutes. What the Fulton County Sheriff could not show you or he would have been fired is that the intentional humiliation and degradation of the prisoner begins at booking. To get you to immediately understand that you are under the complete control of the sheriff’s deputies – deps – they intentionally manhandle everyone right away. Generally, this display of force is administered by two or three big deputies who always seemed to enjoy the duty. Up against the wall, spread ‘em, a rough, hard frisk, and you’d better be ready to explain anything in your pockets, all of which is confiscated, your shoelaces are removed, your hat is taken, and they’ll happily make you bend over and prove you don’t have anything up your ass if they feel like it. That’s first.
After that, you’re put in a holding cell with a bunch of other bewildered, newly arrested people. Here, very slowly, you get to find out two things – time stands still in jail and nobody who works there is ever in the slightest bit of a hurry; and since they take your phone, when they finally give you the chance – one, two, three hours later – you must now deal with a system that is so ridiculous, so purposefully inept, that it is actively working against you making bail and getting out of there. They don’t take credit cards or debit cards, and their crazy phone system has a complicated code that’s supposedly voice sensitive, but isn’t, and keeps making you repeat words over and over again. And you come to slowly understand that you’re in a Kafkaesque, Brazil-like environment, where everything is in deadly slow-motion, and you’re a lowly piece of shit to be ordered around constantly.
And you haven’t even had your picture taken yet. Your photo is put on the wristband that they clamp you into that is irremovable. For the length of your stay, every time you look at your wrist, you get to see exactly how miserable you were when they first booked you.
I’ll bet Fulton County Jail is probably frighteningly similar to our Oakland County Jail, here where I am, or even more like Wayne County Jail, which is where Detroit is. In all cases – Oakland, Wayne and Fulton – they’re dealing with a minimum of 90% black inmates under the age of 35. Nobody is making the slightest effort to get anyone out of there. It is an ebbing and flowing African American population that’s always there, and subsequently understands how to be there. The other 10% is flotsam and jetsam – white, Latino, Arab, Asian – who basically try to stay out of the black inmates’ way, be invisible and just do their time.
Meanwhile, back at the booking, four, five, six hours into the process, after taking your picture, you turn in your clothes and get a jumpsuit (ours were blue) and bright orange flip-flops. Then you get two blankets (and if you’ve got three, you’re in a world of trouble), and they put you in “The Bullpen,” R-9, the main holding cell, that’s the size of my living room, is solid concrete and holds 40 guys. A civilized society does not have this.
It has four exposed stainless-steel toilets completely covered in piss and toilet paper. If R-9 is full, as it often is, then 40 full-sized human men are stretched out to the best of their ability everywhere covering every inch of floor space. I have had to tip-toe through this sea of writhing, pissed off, unhappy, powerless, young black men any number of times, then take the only available space to lie down, which was directly beneath the toilets. The lights are painfully bright and are on all the time. People are vomiting, yelling, trying to talk on the useless jail telephones that won’t recognize their voice as they attempt to arrange bail, which they cannot make.
30% of the cases here in America, for some crazy long amount of time, are people in jail awaiting trial; they cannot maneuver the bail system. I personally have never gotten out quicker than 12 hours. My friend did it in 4 hours, but that’s miraculous.
As a final note, I think your average American honestly thinks that everybody who is in jail is murderer, a thief and rapist. Nobody in jail is a murderer (murderers are in prison). They’re drunk drivers, they’ve fucked up their probation, they didn’t pay child support, they yelled at their girlfriend, they were homeless and ended up there. And they’re mostly young and black, and trying to grow up to adulthood in a system that once it’s caught them, it won’t let them go.
So, no, Donald Trump and his cohorts did not get booked “just like everybody else.” Not even close.
I beat the dawn again.