Midwest Memo
Shaquanda's shove
by Alan Shultz

As the story unfolds, it turns out that 15-year-old Shaquanda Cotton of Paris, Texas, is no perfect little angel. She had a couple disciplinary incidents in her school file before the incident where she shoved a 58-year-old teacher's aide at her high school. But, let's be realistic here. Our high schools are not entirely filled with angels. And, for the record, the shoving incident did not result in any noted injury of the teacher's aide.

Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in Paris' juvenile court before County Judge Chuck Superville. That shove got her a sentence of up to seven years in youth prison. A few months before Shaquanda's trial, Judge Superville granted probation to a 14-year-old girl convicted of arson for burning down her family's home.

Last week Shaquanda was abruptly released from prison after serving one year. A special conservator currently running the Texas juvenile system reviewed her case after the urging of civil rights activists. Conservator Jay Kimbrough said he took the action based on the arbitrary way in which prison officials had extended Shaquanda's prison term. Shaquanda had been found with an extra pair of socks in her jail cell. That warranted her more time. During that "more time" another infraction could have earned her....more time.

Chicago Tribune writer Howard Witt has been covering Shaquanda's story. I applaud Witt for his work and the part his coverage has played in seeing Shaquanda freed from prison. The Sunday edition of the Tribune had front page pictures of Shaquanda after her release. The caption under the picture included the following quote: "Her story sparked a nationwide fury over her punishment..."

I guess that's where I'd take a bit of exception with the Tribune.

I'm not feeling the "fury."

Prisons are big business in the USA. Prison construction is a growth industry.

The crime rate is down in this country, and yet we incarcerate more and more people for lesser offenses.

Prisons are more and more removed from community. We make it harder and harder for family to extend support to folks behind bars.

Prisons are an underground, uncovered story.

The report card on the corrections department looks bad. The recidivism rate for offenders is horrible. No other system in the private sector would carry on with business as usual with the amount of "returns" that the corrections system in this country sustains.

Back to Shaquanda. Do you suppose the Texas juvenile prison system has improved the chances that Shaquanda

will be a good citizen? That

very juvenile system that upped her stay over extra socks has a conservator because it is embroiled in a sex scandal involving prison officials. The U.S. Justice Department is now involved because it appears that different races are meted out different discipline and different justice in Texas.

The USA seems to need an attitude adjustment concerning incarceration.

Prisons should not be a secret underground, under-reported growth industry.

BRING THE STORY HOME

If Carroll County needs a new jail, a better, more up-todate facility, well fine, then one should be built.

But....let's have the "experts" from the "industry" in ONLY after the community and the local officials determine the needs. Let's build the best and the smallest facility that meets those needs, and nothing more.

There are too many prison cells in this country. There's too much incarceration and too little correction. Let's not build a jail here in Carroll County that the prison industry "sells" us.