Highlands County Criminal, & Educational for Agriculture Conspiracy

 

Highlands County Criminal,  & Educational for Agriculture Conspiracy

 

Based on 2012 statistics Highlands County, Florida with a population of under 99,000 people, maintained a jail population of about 400 inmates. We have an incarceration rate above 4%, which is above the average statewide.  About 58.5% of the inmates are pretrial with about 210 of them felony pretrial and 24 misdemeanor pretrial, while about only 41.5% of the inmates are actually already convicted and sentenced  for a crime committed.  So over half the inmates in our jail system in Highlands County, were not yet convicted of a crime, but still they the main portion of the population the detention facility.

 

This says a lot about our judicial system here in Florida and perhaps our country and most certainly Highlands County.  Most of the people in jail were never convicted of a crime and because they are already incarcerated their chances of being vindicated are much lower.  Because the detention center in Highlands County is filled with poor people, who cannot afford bail or a bond or a lawyer, so they are often convicted of crimes because they are forced into plea bargain agreements, simply because they have no other options and probably already served most of their sentence.

 

I am from New York City originally and I can testify that there are few real gangsters here in Highlands County.  Put it this way the jail population are not the real gangsters, but instead most of them are simply uneducated with a sense of hopelessness.   Many of them simply cannot get a job in an already weak job market coupled with bad habits they must support, such as smoking cigarettes and using drugs.

 

The real problem in Highlands County is the poor education system, which is failing our community drastically. According to the Florida Department of Education, only six Florida school districts are performing worst than Highlands County, with a graduation rate of only about 61.1% in 2011-12. And the true culprit to this disorder is corruption in our local governance.  And because of our internal corruption, these things seem to continue to go on unaddressed.  It seems as if Superintendent Cox is AWOL. He should be held accountable for our failing schools, there is no excuse for the performance of our school system.

 

Most of the crimes for profit committed here in Highlands County are smalltime and done by disorganized constituents. There is little organization in the criminal behaviors of the incarcerated.  And most violent crimes are crimes of passion. In both cases they are often cries for help, due to being in a hopeless situation. And until our education system is addressed and corrected, people here will continue to suffer needlessly and go to jail for senseless offenses, only to gain a criminal records, which will place them into an unemployable status for the remainder of their lives.

 

In my opinion, the real criminals are the legislators, who are selling out our youth.  We live in a reactionary criminal justice system here in Highlands County, Florida. And instead of being proactive in  correcting our educational system, which is the true culprit, they are being reactive by incarcerating our youth, who basically know no other way to survive but to commit petty crimes, only to destroy their future. And this is not an excuse for their disobedience, it is the fact behind it. Because by design our schools do not teach our kids a good education and the culture in our community supports this disorder. While the biggest events here is the next party, leaving the kids to televisions as babysitters.

 

The local government supports petty chaos and corruption, to support the economy here in Highlands County and the nation.   And what is going on is bigger than our County, but has reach all over the nation and it is agriculture.  We are one of the biggest agriculture industries in the whole country. Companies like Tropicana depends on us to distribute orange juice nationwide.  And the citizens of Highlands County are collateral damages.  Agriculture which was once the main source of employment for the citizens of Highlands County, Florida, is no longer the case. Most of the agriculture workers have been replaced by migrant workers out of Mexico, because they are willing to work longer hours for less pay, because they themselves are involved in slave labor.

 

But this is a temporary fix, because with immigration reform comes about there will be more freedom for even the migrant worker. For this reason I believe it is so hard to pass immigration reform through the Congress. It could have a devastating effect on how fruit is picked. Because the reality behind agriculture is slave labor and they know this but turn the other way for cheap fruit prices.

 

Meanwhile the African American as well as poor whites have been left behind here in Highlands County. Understand our education system here was never designed to equipped our citizens to excel into higher education. Our job market never supported it and our corrupt City Council legislators has always blocked even light industry from coming here into Avon Park, in support of our agricultural moguls.

 

What is going on here in Highlands County is a conspiracy, to oppress a population of people, in support of the fruit and vegetable industry.  Because an uneducated population  will always be submissive to hard labor for low pay. It is no coincidence that where there are orange trees in abundance, there are also failing schools. Whereby such an environment should by design produce harder work from the students in our schools for hope in a better opportunity, our kids are being discouraged from obtaining a good education. It is all by design, but because our population is only 100,000, with about 10,000 black people, we have no real representation and is flying under the radar.

 

The solution is simple:

 

I think companies like Tropicana, Florida Finest Citrus, Delicious Florida Oranges, Hyatt Fruit Company and the list goes on, should be forced to pay into our education system here in Highlands County or do it on their own accord if I am wrong and it is not a conspiracy.  They should invest in our educational system due to the damages they have inflicted upon us to enable their agricultural market to strive at the cost of innocent lives and our people not being allowed a good education or liberty. They know they have no more use for us anymore and should free us from the grips of their unethical business practices.

 

Frank Paul Jones