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cities, serious crime is way down. The cops are great at arresting the really bad guys, and state legislatures have passed stiff sentencing guidelines that put felons away for decades. What you’ll never see, however, is a headline like this: “ Crime Down—Judges Laid Off, Cops Furloughed, Jails to Close. ”
    So what to do? If murderers, armed robbers, rapists, and drug dealers are in short supply, the system fills itself with graffiti writers, jaywalkers, petty drug users, drivers with suspended licenses, and clueless types who mouth off to cops. The criminal justice system needs inmates to survive. This bureaucratic imperative to make ever more arrests is never absent from the decisions of cops and judges, and it’s never discussed.
    You’re worth real money when you’re busted. For example, if you’re arrested for a petty federal offense like making phony IDs (yes, computer-buying moms and dads, Junior can be arrested on a federal charge, as was one of my stepsons, by the Homeland Security Agency and the Secret Service for using the ’ puter to make phony IDs to buy beer), the state gets paid more than $150 per day by the federal government for every day you’re 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. That’s as much as the toniest resorts get for presidential suites. 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, or more accurately, to ensure that state and city employees work. 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 you’re 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 officers are not, repeat not , social workers. They’re outdoor jailers. And you’re paying them! Big dollars monthly in probation charges! Try paying that bill flipping burgers, sweeping floors in a warehouse, or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart.

JUVIE HALL AIN’T NO MALL
     
    Kids, here’s a bit of advice from your Uncle Dale: Stay out of juvenile detention! You’ve heard it called cute names like juvie hall. You’ve heard it’s not so bad, sort of a cross between a dormitory and a cheap motel. Forget everything you’ve heard. Juvenile detention is kid jail—period. It’s the criminal justice plantation for kids.
    Worse, in many states there’re no bail bonds for kids, no notices to appear in lieu of arrest, and no release into your parents’ custody. Get busted, and you’re going in.
    Inside there’s generally no rehabilitation, no work, nothing except jail cells and jailers. When you go in, you’ll be strip-searched. If the corrections officers think you’re carrying drugs, they will force open your mouth and poke around in there. The officers will not be concerned about you as a person. Their job is to process your body through the system. They care only about getting food in, waste out, grunge showered off, and jumpsuits changed as per regulation. Mostly they care about keeping you locked up until a judge decides what to do with you. If you become sufficiently annoying, they will strap you into a detention chair and lock you in a soundproof cell so you can scream your head off without bothering