CC Magazine February 2014

CC

FEBRUARY 2014

MAGAZINE

PORT ARANSAS DEFIES PORT OF CORPUS CHRISTI HALTS HARBOR ISLAND REFINERY DEVELOPMENT

CC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Land of the

FREE Has the Most Prisoners

AMERICAN GULAGS

CC

magazine

JEFF CRAFT Publisher

JEFF@JEFFCRAFT.US

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Samantha Koepp, Dale Rankin, Georgia Griffin, Ronnie Narmour, Aletha Eyerman, Charlz Vinson

PHOTOGRAPHY Miles Merwin, Jeff Dolan, Janette Park-Rankin Dale Rankin, Georgia Griffin, Max Strycharske, Ronnie Narmour, Angela Maria Gonzalez

CONTACT CC @ 361.443.2137 361.949.7700 505 S Water St Suite 545 Corpus Christi, Tx 78401

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Call for submissions

We are currently accepting submissions for the following categories: Poetry • Fiction • Non Fiction • Art • Photography Writer's Bloc is a student-operated literary magazine at Texas A&M University, Kingsville. Showcasing the best works of writing and art, Writer's Bloc serves the literary and artistic community through the annual publication of anonymously judged submissions from around the state of Texas, the nation, and beyond. We are currently accepting submissions of Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Essays, Novels and Dramas (in part), Book Reviews, Author/Artist Interviews and Artwork (prints and photographs).

Submissions are accepted yearround. All submissions received before March 31st, 2014 will be considered for publication in the 2014 edition of Writer's Bloc.

2012

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Writer’s Bloc

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2012

To submit your work, please use one of the following methods: Hardcopy

writersbloc@tamuk.edu or kuahe000@tamuk.edu (attached files only, please include the subject line “Writer’s Bloc Submissions”)

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Electronic

For more information, please contact Aletha Eyerman, Editor, kuahe000@tamuk.edu © Copyright 2013 all rights reserved. CC Publishing, LLC reserves the right to edit, rewrite & refuse editorial materials and assumes no responsibility for accuracy, errors, omissions, or consequence arising from it. CC magazine shall be held harmless indemnified against any third party claims. CC Publishing, LLC accepts no claims made by agents, contributors or photographers. Opinions expressed by contributing writers or columnists are not necessarily those of CC Publishing, LLC or its affiliates. Advertisers appearing in CC magazine present only the viewpoint of the advertisers. CC magazine is printed in the USA. We assume no responsibility for advertising claims made in this publication. All correspondence to this publication becomes the property of CC magazine. Publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without express permission of the publisher and author(s).

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Poor Niagra?

After seeing the famous Iguazú Falls that border Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay my vote is in. Hands down, Iguazú Falls (a UNESCO World Heritage Center since 1984 in Argentina and 1986 in Brazil) is the most spectacular falls in the world.

After my recent visit to Iguazú Falls, I left completely impressed. Certainly, it must rank consistently high on everybody’s list of incredible waterfalls.

12

CC Orchestra Founded in 1945, the CCSO began as the brainchild of Rabbi Sydney Wolf, a musical prodigy and leader of the Temple Beth El congregation. Once established, the orchestra found a home (albeit a high school auditorium) in the city, and a core group of patrons formed. The newly created music department of Corpus Christi Junior College (now Del Mar College) provided the musical talent. But the orchestra faced the same headwinds then that affect many performing arts programs today.

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Prison Archepelago The amount of prisoners in the United States is staggering. Few people know that we are the world's largest jailer. Few people know that we keep policies in place that keep this prison population high. More shocking is that fewer people realize that with simple changes, we could drastically reduce prison population without a threat to public safety. Even locally, the Nueces County jail is nearly always at a capacity of 85-95%. The sheriff is always asking for more jail space, but the truth is that we just need to hold less people.

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10 Inside the Center 16 Fishing Fotos 19 The Lenz

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Port A Defies Port of CC

Port Aransas Defies Port of Corpus Christi Says "No" to Refineries on Harbor Island Port Threatens "Nuclear Option"

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In September, the Port Commision approved a $35 Million sale of a 254 acres on Harbor Island to Martin Midstream operate a fractionator that separates different products from natural gas.

Martin Midstream apparently applied for a permit that would allow them to upgrade the facility to a full-scale refinery at some point. Residents of Port Aransas balked at the idea of a refinery so close to their sleepy little fishing village and demanded their city council change the zoning of Harbor Island to specifically prohibit refineries. Ben Frishman, a spokesman for the group opposed to the development, presented the petition to the council with over 1,000 signatures demanding a zoning change to the island to prevent future refineries from being considered.

Meanwhile, the Martin Midstream deal was being contested by Kenneth Berry, former Port Commissioner and owner of the Berry Company.

Berry claimed that an agreement signed by the port last February, in which Martin Midstream paid the port $175,000 to take the property off the market while they studied the site was unfair to other potential bidders. The Berry Company did not bid on the site during the last offering. The deal with Martin Midstream was officially scuttled because of Berry’s Lawsuit. Port commissioners said they will reconsider the Martin project once the legal proceedings are done.

Should the Port have any say in how a city zones property managed by the Port? It depends on who you ask, and is still something of an open question. The port Authority is governed by a seven commissioners, three appointed by the Corpus Christi City Council, three are appointed by the Nueces County Commissioners Court, and one is appointed by the San Patricio County Commissioners Court. As a regional inter-governmental body, governed by representatives of local government, there’s a case to be made that the Port has the right to be consulted about changes that may affect the areas under its control. And if it came to a court battle, the Port has a lot more resources to throw into the fight, and rumors of a "nuclear option" circulated during negotiations, hinting that while The Port may not win a court battle over a refinery on Harbor Island, it would stand a good chance of winning one to rezone Roberts Point Park, land currently owned by the port and used by Port Aransas as a staging area for vehicles waiting for the ferry. If The Port won the right to rezone Roberts Point as commercial property, Port Aransas would be forced to reroute traffic, potentially costing millions of dollars and dooming the city to gridlock during busy periods.

Anti-refinery booth in front of the Port Aransas City Council Meeting

Port Aransas residents crowded into the council chambers to participate in the debate

The Nuclear Option

History of Harbor Island Harbor Island is located on the east side of the channel adjacent to Port Aransas where the ferry landing are locate on the landward side. According to the Texas State Historical Society in 1720 the French explorer Jean Béranger discovered Aransas Pass and landed on what is now known as Harbor Island and by 1857 the pass had become important enough to rate a lighthouse because channel’s location at that time was directly in front of its entrance to the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1912 the United States Army Corps of Engineers finished deepening Aransas Pass allowing the passage of deep water vessels and in September of 1912. The 9.6-mile Aransas Harbor Terminal Railroad connected Harbor Island with the mainland and the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway. A cotton compress was

Continued next page

Roberts Point Park

The Port owns Roberts Point Park, where cars waiting for the ferry to Aransas Pass stack up on busy days. The Port could insist that a park isn’t the highest and best use of the area, and win the right to develop the land as commercial property. Losing that switchback through the park would be a massive strain on Port Aransas, as cars stacked up for the ferry crossing could create gridlock throughout the entire North side of the city. Sources close the Port report the use of this nuclear option has been discussed, but remains unlikely.

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built on the island in 1913, and during World War I a concrete shipbuilding firm was constructed there. By 1927 the Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Company, U.S.A.) had built a large oil terminal on Harbor Island and other major oil companies laid pipelines to the docks to meet the oil tankers.

The opening of the deepwater port in Corpus Christi in 1926 meant that trade in dry cargo at Harbor Island stopped. In the late 1980s an oil terminal still operated there, but all of the old cargo docks were gone. Brown and Root ran an oceangoing oil-rig construction company on the island.

Brownfield and Greenfield Land

Kenneth Berry This isn’t the first time Berry has disagreed with the port Commission.

During his time on the board, his was the one vote against the Port’s cold storage facility, saying his experience with other ports had shown these facilities to be money-losers. So far, the port has spent about $28 million on the storage facility with only $7 million in revenue.

Sources familiar with the Harbor Island site have said previously that if the land were to be developed as anything other than industrial the cost to clean up the site could run as high as an additional $60 million, above the purchase price, to remove and relocate as much as fifteen feet of topsoil contaminated by industrial use dating back to 1912. Oil storage tanks were located on the site as recently as the late 1990s. The Port of Corpus Christi purchased the site in 1993 and spent several million dollars cleaning it up in order to meet what are known as “Brown Field” standards which allow for industrial development.

To use the land as anything other than industrial would mean a further upgrade to a “Green Field’ assessment and no formal study has been done to determine exactly what that would entail or cost since that was considered cost-prohibitive.

Former Port Aransas mayor Claude Brown addressed the Port A City Council about the zoning change. The debate brought the largest crowd in memory to the council chambers.

Port A Lays Down The Law The city of Port Aransas rezoned the land on Harbor Island to Light Industrial, meaning any new development on Harbor Island will have to meet stricter environmental reqirements.

Old Zoning Code Sec. 25-121. Harbor Island District – In this district no land or building shall be used, erected for, or converted to any use other than:

Brownfield site is land previously used for industrial purposes or some commercial uses. The land may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, and has the potential to be reused once it is cleaned up.[1] Land that is more severely contaminated and has high concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, such as a Superfund site, does not fall under the brownfield classification. Mothballed brownfields are properties that the owners are not willing to transfer or put to productive reuse.

(1)

Heavy industrial uses;

(2)

Any lawful, non-dwelling, non-residential use;

(3)

Planned unit developments (PUD) and master planned developments are encouraged;

(4)

Dwellings for resident watchmen/caretakers provided they are clearly incidental and secondary with the main use to which the property is put.”

New zoning: Section 25-121. – HI Harbor Island district regulations.

Greenfield land is undeveloped land in a city or rural area either used for agriculture, landscape design, or left to naturally evolve. These areas of land are usually agricultural or amenity properties being considered for urban development. Greenfield land can be unfenced open fields, urban lots or restricted closed properties kept off limits to the general public by a private or government entity. Rather than build upon greenfield land a developer may choose to re-develop brownfield or greyfield lands, areas that have been developed but left abandoned or underused.

In this district no land or building shall be used, erected for, or converted to any use other than: 1.

Any lawful, non-dwelling, non-residential use listed in R-1, R-2, TR-1, TR-2, TR-3, C-1, C-2, or I-1 2.

Light manufacturing

3.

Marine terminals

4.

Storage Facilities for oil and/or gas

5.

Ship yards

6.

Fabrication yards

7.

Offshore oil/gas support services

8.

Cruise ship/Gaming ship terminal

9.

Research and testing laboratories

10.

Communication towers

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Concrete and asphalt batch plants

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Seafood processing, packing, and storage

13.

Dwellings for resident watchmen/caretakers

14.

Dredge material placement areas

Planned Unit Developments are encouraged.

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Center INSIDE THE

The Perfect Dates coming your way this February

By Kristen Bily As the month of love approaches, there are so many options for the perfect date night happening at the American Bank Center this February. From the romantic sounds of Jim Brickman, to the nostalgic sounds of Liverpool Legends, give your date night a twist this February and enjoy with the one you love!

February 15 & 16 Blue Man Group

February 26

American Bank Center Selena Auditorium

Amy Grant

Take date night to another level with the Blue Man Group and experience the phenomenon! Blue Man Group has long been known for their massive theatrical shows, combined with comedy, music and technology. Make date night more interactive and a little bit more colorful as the Blue Man Group show you what a live performance truly is. Tickets are still available for both Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 1pm performances.

American Bank Center Selena Auditorium @7pm With a musical career that has spanned over 20 years, Amy Grant continues to captivate fans with her songs, exploring life’s complexities, yet finding peace through faith. Enjoy a night with Amy Grant as she takes you back to your favorites but also shares her most recent album, “How Mercy looks from Here”.

Amy Grant’s music has been enjoyed by all ages as well so this also makes for the

I

w t i A r c

n s F w ( h

February 21

perfect night out with the family.

Jim Brickman “The Love Tour”

February 28

American Bank Center Selena Auditorium @7:30pm

Liverpool Legends

Your Valentine’s Day gift will not be complete without a pair of tickets for Jim Brickman. The Love Tour gives you the quintessential experience of love and romance by America’s favorite multiplatinum recording artist, pianist/ songwriter. With over 27 top 40 singles, Jim Brickman brings the most romantic concert of the year with his perfect balance between musical intimacy, compelling storytelling and audience interaction! As you hear the fantastic piano solos accompanied by his star studded vocal collaborations, you’re reminded why you fell in love in the first place.

American Bank Center Selena Auditorium @8:00pm Listen to all of the music that shaped pop culture and made you fall in love, with Liverpool Legends- The Complete Beatles Experience. Made up of four talented musicians that were hand-picked by Louise Harrison, sister of the late George Harrison, the original member of the Beatles. Take a trip down memory lane and come together for a night surrounded by nostalgia and make some more memories.

Why not get a little creative this year and give your loved one some fun and new memories. From Blue Men Group, to the iconic sound of the Beatles, and the romantic sounds of Jim Brickman, let SMG American Bank Center be your quintessential date night spot. SMG managed American Bank Center is Corpus Christi’s premier event center providing unprecedented guest experiences. Follow us online at www.americanbankcenter.com , facebook.com/AmericanBankCenter, Twitter.com/@AmericanBankCtr, and Instagram/@AmericanBankCenter.

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I c l w I g w c

c m r a P o

i r a w

Iguazú Falls

By Brent Rourk Thousands of visitors each day enjoy Iguazú Falls from both countries. Each country displays a unique and magnificent view of the falls and there are many options for viewing Iguazú; from winding platforms, decks, paths, outcrops and even by water where getting drenched is a certainty.

Locals who have been fortunate enough to travel and to see spectacular waterfalls might have other ideas, certainly other opinions, but after seeing the famous Iguazú Falls that border Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay my vote is in. Hands down, Iguazú Falls (a UNESCO World Heritage Center since 1984 in Argentina and 1986 in Brazil) is the most spectacular falls in the world. After my recent visit to Iguazú Falls, I left completely impressed. Certainly, it must rank consistently high on everybody’s list of incredible waterfalls.

Photographing 275 waterfalls is no easy task and each waterfall offers a dramatic yet different perspective of the falls. It is a photographers dream to behold the beauty and to attempt to capture it. The subtropical forests around the falls contain over 2,000 species of plants, 80 species of trees, and an astonishingly wide variety of animals including tapirs, Harpy Eagles, giant anteaters, Howler and Capuchin monkeys, ocelots, toucans, large iguanas, macaws, coatis, broad-snout caimans, and almost 400 other bird species, including the astounding Great Dusty Swift that plunges directly into the waterfalls to their nests behind the torrents of water.

Iguazú Falls might not be higher than Victoria Falls nor have the mean annual flow of Niagara Falls but it stretches for as far as the eye can see. In fact, Iguazú Falls is not one waterfall but rather 275 separate waterfalls. It is wider than both Victoria and Niagara (almost 3 kilometers wide), is higher than Niagara, and has a higher mean water flow than Victoria.

On November 11 of 2011, Iguazú Falls was announced as one of the seven winners of the New Seven Wonders of Nature by the New Seven Wonders of the World Foundation. Iguazú Falls was the only waterfall to make the final seven. The only other waterfall in the top 28 wonders of nature was Angel Falls in Venezuela, a single waterfall with an unbelievable height of 3212 feet.

Even the local legend surrounding the creation of Iguazú Falls is anointing and memorable. The story centers on a god who intended to marry a beautiful local woman named Naipí, who wanted nothing to do with the god. Instead, she fled with her mortal lover.

Incensed after learning of Naipí’s disappearance, the god split a local river in two and created hundreds of waterfalls so that the two lovers would be eternally condemned to fall.

Categorically, there are several ways to compare waterfalls and to create criteria for the best. To each his own! So whether you consider width, number of waterfalls, amount of rushing water, height, plunge, or the scenery around the waterfall, there is no loser. They are all beautiful and breath-taking. Such is the indisputable essence of waterfalls. Niagara Falls, Yosemite Falls, and a spectacular group of waterfalls in both Hawaii and Montana are a few of the remarkable waterfalls located in the United States. Both Norway and Venezuela boast several high waterfalls, some of which are easily visible from main roads.

The most famous of the 275 falls comprising Iguazú is called “The Devil’s Throat,” which has 14 falls plunging more than 350 feet. Typically, there is an ever-present rainbow stretching across the falls, a result of the vast amount of mist created by continued rushing water.

Plumes and blankets of mist obscure the falls and the adjacent forests as torrents of water flow through all of the falls.

Walking on decks extending out into the falls, a hypnotized and awed observer is soon surrounded by 260 degrees of massive waterfalls, flanked by riveting rocky outcrops with a backdrop of lush, green jungle. The sounds of the falls are at times deafening and the mist is drenching, especially during optimal seasonal water flow.

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But for now, my vote goes to the enormous, enveloping, and thundering waterfalls in Brazil and Argentina known as Iguazú Falls. Even on overcast days, the immensity, beauty, and power of Iguazú Falls is intoxicating. Without question, it should be on everybody’s ‘Must See’ bucket list. I have to agree with Eleanor Roosevelt who upon witnessing the spectacle of Iguazú Falls for the first time allegedly uttered the words ‘Poor Niagara!’

Indispensable

Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra

By Bob Copes

his attention. He saw its orchestra as “a very fine artistic ensemble” capable of performing the complete symphonic repertory. He found its citizens personable, kind and supportive of the CCSO. And he was intrigued by the newly christened Performing Arts Center.

While terms like “stuffy,” “expensive,” and “boring ” are used by some to describe a symphony orchestra concert, Maestro John Giordano, music director and conductor of the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, prefers the term “indispensable.”

The Performing Arts Center at Texas A&M University's Corpus Christi campus is an architectural marvel. The $18 million facility sits overlooking Corpus Christi Bay, and its 50-foot glass-walled lobby provides a breath-taking view of what's outside.

But with concert halls, it is what's inside that counts, and the PAC excels there as well. The 1350-seat concert hall's acoustics share the same design firms as New York City's Radio City Music Hall, Bass Hall in Fort Worth and Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. With the center's opening in 2005, the orchestra had a venue worthy to call its home.

As the CCSO's 68th season approached, Giordano reflected on his nearly 10 years at its helm. “My goal was to do whatever possible to help the orchestra become an indispensable part of the fabric of this wonderful city,” he said. While still short of “indispensable,” the adjective no longer sounds farfetched, and no one who knows him or the musicians he leads would bet against them.

Founded in 1945, the CCSO began as the brainchild of Rabbi Sydney Wolf, a musical prodigy and leader of the Temple Beth El congregation. Once established, the orchestra found a home (albeit a high school auditorium) in the city, and a core group of patrons formed. The newly created music department of Corpus Christi Junior College (now Del Mar College) provided the musical talent. But the orchestra faced the same headwinds then that affect many performing arts programs today: the perceptions that it was elitist, expensive and boring.

It grew slowly and developed a loyal following, Both Giordano (left) and Reed cite their excellent working but it took several decades and a convergence of relationship as important to the orchestra's success fortunate events for the orchestra to hit its stride.

Giordano was now at the conductor's stand, and the passion he brought to expanding the orchestra's horizons was equaled by his passion for music education. Years earlier, while studying for his doctorate at the University of North Texas, Giordano was appointed assistant conductor of the Fort Worth Youth Symphony. His interaction with those young musicians profoundly influenced his views on arts education. He summed it up this way: “There is no question of the importance of classical music to the intellectual and emotional development of our youth; therefore, they must be exposed to great music on a regular basis.” During his tenure at CCSO, he has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Patricia Furley Education Concerts targeting fourth- and fifth-graders and has overseen the growth in the Corpus Christi Area Youth Orchestra.

The first of these events was the arrival of Giordano, a highly regarded concert saxophonist who enjoyed a distinguished 27-year career as conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. After leaving that post in 2000 (and leaving it in much better shape than he found it), he traveled extensively as a guest conductor throughout the United States and in South America, Europe and Asia. But the rigors of travel and the time spent away from family took their toll, and after three years, he began to look for the next place to settle. Corpus Christi drew

No one knows the value of early arts education better than Robert Reed, CCSO's executive director. As one of seven children in an inner-city Louisville, Ky., neighborhood, symphonic music was nowhere on his or his family's radar.

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All that changed in the fourth grade when a field trip took him to see the Louisville Orchestra. “I was transformed by that experience,” he said, and he immediately knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He sees himself as “a walking ad for arts education,” as the discipline he developed in learning to play the clarinet extended to all areas of study. Grades shot up, and college followed high school.

Graduate school came after that, and soon he was playing the clarinet professionally.

An interest in what went on behind the scenes at the symphony led him to apply for a fellowship to the American Symphony Orchestra League's orchestra administration program. Here Reed found the perfect marriage of his analytical skills with his love of music, and administrative work with several symphony orchestras followed.

There is a natural tension between an orchestra's artistic director and its executive director. The need to challenge both the orchestra and its audience musically must be balanced with the need to perform popular, accessible pieces that fill the seats and pay the bills. Reed had seen organizations so fraught with egos and in-fighting that they could never strike the right balance. However, he sensed “something special” in Corpus Christi that inspired confidence that the fit would be right, and he joined the CCSO as executive director in 2010. Giordano concurred that the partnership is flourishing saying, “It is rare for a music director and CEO of a symphony to have a close relationship and be on the same page regarding programming, orchestra development, goals, etc. We have that relationship, and it is working superbly.”

students, the new NoteCard program offers tickets for all six classical subscription series concerts for $25. And if that's still too much money, music lovers can listen to the live performance free on radio stations KEDT 90.3 or KVRT 90.7.

Now with all the parts in place, the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra is overcoming the perceptions that had held it back. Those thinking the organization is elitist are learning two things. Yes, there are some wealthy (and some very wealthy) Corpus Christians in the audience. The donations from these and other patrons of the symphony, including corporate, foundation and government sponsors, provide two-thirds of the symphony's revenues and make ticket prices substantially less for concert-goers than they would be otherwise.

So, thank you, Patrons. But, no, the organization is most definitely not elitist. At every event one will see families with children, young couples on dates and school kids gaining their first exposure to the symphony. The audience covers a broad spectrum of the Coastal Bend's citizens, united by their love of great music.

Finally, it is decidedly not boring. This season offers a variety of works to appeal to every taste. It began with the winners of the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition performing works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev and will end with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, including the beloved “Ode to Joy.” In between are familiar names like Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Brahms as well as lesser-known composers like Frank Martin and Max Bruch. The orchestra's popular “Home for the Holidays” concert in December will feature traditional favorites. For the third consecutive year, the orchestra returns to Whataburger Field for a March “Pops in the Park” concert, where a very un-boring fireworks show will complement its performance of familiar standards. And in January, the orchestra will appear alongside a tribute rock band performing the music of The Eagles. There is, quite simply, something for everyone.

But why is it so expensive? The answer is that it isn't. Symphonic music cannot be produced cheaply given both the numbers of musicians and those working behind the scenes at every performance. But putting things in perspective, single concert ticket prices range from $22 to $90, which puts the cost somewhere between seeing the Blue Man Group and seeing Foreigner at the Selena Auditorium.

People purchasing season tickets realize significant price reductions. New offerings allow purchasing a partial season of events at reduced rates. And for

The Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra has accomplished quite a lot over the last few years, and Maestro Giordano hopes that it is becoming “a major source of pride for every citizen.” Over the past decade, it has become the largest performing arts organization in south Texas and the premier orchestra on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Can “indispensable” be far behind?

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Prison Archipelago

By Kyle Hoelscher The amount of prisoners in the United States is staggering. Few people know that we are the world's largest jailer. Few people know that we keep policies in place that keep this prison population high. More shocking is that fewer people realize that with simple changes, we could drastically reduce prison population without a threat to public safety. Even locally, the Nueces County jail is nearly always at a capacity of 85-95%. The sheriff is always asking for more jail space, but the truth is that we just need to hold less people.

first, lack of which is the main cause for criminality in the first place.

So, people tend to write these prisoners off as bad people, who cares. That may be so, but shouldn't we solve the problem, rather than just warehouse the problem? If we could structure our criminal justice system to keep people from returning, we could see these numbers drop. We could see people be rehabilitated. How do we do this? First and foremost is education. Education is the greatest factor that determines future criminality. Yet we cut basic education everywhere you look. We make our schools into uninviting prisons that you graduate from without a trade, then we wonder why kids drop out and join gangs. The next thing that could be done is removal of mandatory minimums and enhancement charges on non-violent offenses. The most familiar of these is "three strikes and you’re out". This is the famous California punishment system that says that a 3rd felony is automatic life without parole. Texas has similar system set up, though few get automatic life without parole. Our punishments get tougher if you keep committing felonies. And while i do not oppose the spirit of this law, it has caused far more damage to our society than it has fixed. The idea was to get the really bad people off the street for good. This was fine when we have a 70's style violent crime wave, with muggings, stabbings, and other such big name crimes. In real terms, violent crime has dropped dramatically since the mid-80's (before these laws were even put in place). In modern times, these harsh sentences typically fall on drug addicts. A 3rd drug felony will get you life like anything else. We should modify these enhancement laws so that they apply to crimes that truly harm society: sexual crimes, crimes of violence, and serious property crimes.

First, numbers tell a lot about a problem. They do not tell solutions, causes, or relationships, but they will tell you the size and scope of our nation's prison problem. We are addicted to jails (and punishment for that matter). We have only 5% of the world's population, yet we have 25% of the world's prisoners.

We had 2.2 million people in prison at the end of 2011. On top of that, we had another 4.8 million people on parole or probation. Totalled, 2.9% of the population in the US is under the supervision of the criminal justice system. In 2002, we were crowned the world biggest jailer after we surpassed China in number of prisoners. We reign both per capital in prison and by the raw number.

In 2013, it is estimated that our incarceration rate will be 713 per 100,000 in the United States. For comparison, Rwanda jails 527 per 100k, Cuba jails 519 per 100k, and Russia jails 490 per 100k. The UK, which is the largest jailer in Europe, jails 148 per 100k.

There are many reasons for these soaring numbers, even as our crime rate continues to drop, but the one I want to focus on is money. It is a sad truth that money pushes government to arrest more people. We need police, we need probation, and we need jails. These things are not disputable. Also, because they are functions of governments, they are run by bureaucrats. Bureaucrats have job security as long as there are government jobs. Police chiefs know that if arrests drop, there will be incentive to cut the police budget.

This cuts your power and your job security. You want to promise your employees that they have a career in your force. You need to keep arrests high. If you are a warden, you do not want to see your budget go down.

You want to keep you jail at full capacity. If you are the head of a county probation department, less probationers mean less money, meaning less employees. So, these bureaucrats makes sure that politicians keep "tough on crime" as part of their political agenda. They ensure that laws for higher punishments, mandatory minimums, and grants for drug arrests keep coming. Politicians do not have a problem with this bedfellow, the public likes to feel safe, so of course, anything to do with public safety must be fully funded. Ironically, they put education on the chopping block 14

Prison Labor: Modern Slavery For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp-time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce.

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States. This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs.

It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.

Lets look locally. Nueces County jail has a capacity of 1068 inmates. In October of 2013, we had 979 inmates. That is about a 91% capacity. This is about average for us. We can't seem to get this number below 85%. How is it possible that we always have enough crime to keep the jail 85 to 90% full? The truth is that we could adopt simple reforms to pre-trial bail. We could monitor people who have been released on bail, instead of keeping them locked up. We could make more non-violent cases non-arrest cases. Why do we lock up people who possess marijuana or shoplifters? Police have the ability to simply charge someone with a class B misdemeanor. If that person fully identifies themselves and is not violent, then the police can let them go under Texas law. The person will still be facing the charge, they will still have to report to the court. It is unclear why our local bureacrats don't do this.

The federal prison industry produces military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

Crime will not stop. We will always need jails. What we need more is a society that values freedom and values rehabilitating those that violate the law. Longer prison sentences do not rehabilitate, stiffer punishments do not rehabilitate, and if you release the same person that you put in, you have acheived nothing by incarcerating them. On a national scale and local scale, there is a lot we can do, but as long as there there are so many political and economic incentives for the people in power to incarcerate, they will.

Private Prisons The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex.

About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

Importing And Exporting Inmates Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Ctuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 ending court supervision and decisions caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

15

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