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T A B L E__T A L K Are computers good for kids? How do you regulate your kids' use? Weigh in on the benefits and problems with these educational tools in Table Talk's Digital Culture area - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Internet U. The 21st Challenge No. 13: Status gadgets Let's Get This Straight Look, ma, no ink! The long bust? - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
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| _L O C K E D _ U P _ I N _ A M E R I C A_ |________
Inside the new high-tech lock-downs
BY JIM RENDON | In a small, dim room where riot gear is chained to the wall and a computer monitor is perched on the counter, three jail guards sit comfortably behind tall tinted windows, keeping order on the cell block below them without lifting a boot. The recreation room, jail cells and showers arc in a neat semicircle around the control booth. Cell doors are open since it is recreation time, and the inmates, wearing Los Angeles County's gold and royal blue uniforms, play checkers and talk in the day room, an open area near the cells. Instead of bars, shatter-proof glass walls confine the inmates -- leaving guards and prisoners to eye each other mutely all day long, like fish in neighboring tanks on a pet store shelf. "Lock down, possible miss out in the facility," a voice crackles over the booth's intercom. Somewhere in the building an inmate is missing. No one moves except officer Johnson. He casually flips a switch on the control panel, and a loud siren begins to wail. Then he bends the microphone toward his mouth. "All inmates in 151, all inmates in 151, lock down, lock down," he chants in a cheerful singsong voice. "Start closing all cell doors, we're locking down, gentlemen," he finishes, easing back from the microphone. The trio of guards look on from their perch as the 192 inmates on this floor break up their conversations and amble toward the two-tiered wall of cells on their own. There is no need for the guards to leave the booth. If anything looks suspicious, the officers can flip a switch to eavesdrop on any of the 96 cells, or talk privately with an inmate from the comfort of their post. Although a video camera points toward the day room, ready to document any trouble that might arise, nothing transpires -- the inmates seem more resigned than defiant. Once in their cells, the prisoners close the solid doors and wait to hear the bolt slide into place, as the guards in the control booth move lever after lever. When each door is secured, lights on the booth's console flicker from red to green, indicating who is locked in. Only after all doors are sealed will the guards leave their posts to peer through the small glass windows in each cell door, visually identifying and counting inmates. This is life in the Twin Towers, Los Angeles County's high-tech lock up. The sleek new building is the first of what is being hailed as a new generation of jails -- facilities that combine technology and innovative design to help contain the cost of jailing people while further isolating and controlling them. Fueled by decades of anti-crime rhetoric, inmate populations have boomed in recent years -- from 500,000 in 1980 to 1.8 million in 1997 -- and pushed prison capacity to the breaking point. Today, with the help of high-tech solutions, prisons are now locking up more prisoners using fewer guards -- and at the same time furthering the trend toward less rehabilitation and more punishment. N E X T_ P A G E .|. Revenge of the panopticon -- 24-hour surveillance, lethal voltage and the rush to cut costs |
