The Media's 'Spectacular' Stand Against Prisons

Townhall.com ^ | August 6, 2021 | Tim Graham

[Kaslin]

source JANIFEST

The "mainstream media" love to pretend that they represent the sensible middle ground of the ideological spectrum, but any extended look at their coverage reveals that they are incapable of finding an unsuitable extreme on the left. For example, some leftists openly advocate for the end of prisons. Are they questioned for their sanity? No. They're given platforms for their "poetry."

On the Aug. 4 episode of "PBS NewsHour," they celebrated a man named Jorge Antonio Renaud. On the "Latino Rebels" website last year, Renaud explicitly declared, "I'm going to speak about prison abolition, which is the idea that the American criminal justice system is immoral, grounded as it is in punishment and abuse; that it gains sustenance from humans consigned to cages; and that it must be dismantled and replaced by a justice system based in transformative and restorative approaches."

PBS anchor Judy Woodruff provided him a taxpayer-funded platform: "Jorge Antonio Renaud spent 27 years behind bars, where he discovered the power of poetry. He is now national criminal justice director at Latino Justice, where he advocates for reform in Texas and beyond. Tonight, he gives his 'Brief But Spectacular' take on reimagining incarceration."

Renaud spoke of "the demonstrable harm that happens to people who are in cages," but he didn't comment on the demonstrable harm of people who are victimized by armed robbery, which he committed. PBS did not create a space for debate. It created a platform for a "brief but spectacular" case for abolishing prisons. Does Woodruff want armed robbers living in her basement?

PBS is not alone. The Associated Press filed a "news" dispatch on Aug. 5 that was a badly disguised ad for the "abolish ICE" crowd. The headline was "Immigrant Detentions Soar Despite Biden's Campaign Promises." AP reporters Philip Marcelo and Gerald Herbert began from the illegal alien perspective. "Alexander Martinez says he fled from homophobia, government persecution and the notorious MS-13 gang in El Salvador only to run into abuse and harassment in America's immigration detention system."

There's a border crisis under President Joe Biden, but for the radical left, the problem is that illegal immigrants are detained at all. AP reported, "The rising detentions is a sore point for President Joe Biden's pro-immigration allies, who hoped he would reverse his predecessor's hardline approach."

Notice when you back untrammeled illegal immigration, you're merely "pro-immigration."

Then, AP just let this laughable notion of immigration "hardliner" Biden go on. "We're at this really strange moment with him," Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, said. At least AP explained Shah "advocates for ending immigration detention outright," although there was no opposing point of view. Shah added, "There's still time to turn things around, but his policies so far haven't matched his campaign rhetoric."

to abolish ICE and disentangle immigration from the criminal punishment system; we must work to abolish the entire prison industrial complex in order for all of our communities to thrive."

Just like PBS, AP did not offer the public an actual debate on whether all of our prisons should be emptied out. They created an invincibly one-sided platform for a nutty, radical point of view.

The media pretend that they are the guardians of democracy. But in reality, they are the guardians of the left and distrust democracy because it gives those crazy right-wingers space to rebut the radical left. In a real democracy, people will search out other more responsible news sources than PBS and AP.

[Boomer]

One wonders if they would prefer a simple hanging at dawn for all prison level offenses.

If there is no consequence to committing crime then crime will be the law of the land.

[frogjerk]

Yet the evil people on Jan 6th who merely trespassed with the escort of Capitol police are in the Gulag.

[dfwgator]

Richard Pryor - Thank God We Got Penitentiaries

Language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txp8B4ek_kk

[V_TWIN]

Ask Barbara boxer how she feels about prison reform....might be interesting.

Also I imagine most Of these so called experts have never even been inside a prison let alone talked with even one inmate so what makes them so knowledgeable I wonder.

[Chickensoup]

Crime will be the law of the land..

It is.

We are rapidly descending into chaos.

[bert]

The media’s stand is patronizing the Africanizers upon whom control of the city states and thus the country is dependent

Lose the corrupt black community and lose America

Black nosing is thus the imperative

Political commentary

[Little Ray]

I like the idea of “transfomative” and “restorative” approaches.
So, lets find a large, isolated area that doesn’t have anything on it that we might need in the near future, put some tools and supplies down on it, then dump the inmates and tell ‘em to get building and farming, ‘cuz winter is coming.
Every time they cross a milestone, they get some additional supplies, rewards, etc.
They can build a society that meets their needs without any interference from ‘the man’ and in the process ‘transform’ and ‘restore’ themselves. I am sure it will be so successful that some enlightened folks will want to join them!
/sarc

Actually, it would make Lord of the Flies look like a resort stay.
Prisons are nasty for a reason.

[17th Miss Regt]

I think there will come an equilibrium with crime on one side and vigilantism on the other side. The level of vigilantism will rise high enough to balance the crime. Of course, that is not justice in the sense to which we are accustomed but we might just have to learn to accept it when the justice system that we have fails to function.

[Hot Tabasco]

Why did you kill everyone in the house?"

"They was home!"

LOL!