THREAD: In the case of prisons + policing, the government + corporations have used policy to institutionalize public-private partnerships that - on paper - aim to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Youth #WorkforceDevelopment reflects those & #39;partnerships& #39;. https://twitter.com/AKCamardelle/status/1270029102930702339">https://twitter.com/AKCamarde...

"Unskilled" youth are ESPECIALLY implicated by this.

I.e. some suggest if cities provide summer jobs, they would reduce the amount of tax dollars spent on law enforcement.

They even inflate the idea that having Black youth on the streets during the summer breeds crime.

Cities have spent BANK in public tax $$ to hire consultants to measure the impact of youth employment programs on crime rates.

The most famous studies are conducted in places like Boston, New York and Chicago, which are often referred to as places in dire need of “law & order”.

In New York, & #39;evaluations& #39; have shown that summer job programs implemented to reduce crime did not even benefit the economic security of youth. A report by MDRC) - who received over $1M in contracts to conduct the evaluation - found no long-term employment & earnings outcomes.

The youth-as-criminal discourse fosters policies that construct a neoliberal subject “who claims responsibility for his/her actions, a strategy which ultimately shifts the responsibility for crime control from the state to the individual and the community” - Turner (2014).

As a result, job training programs responsible for fixing ‘youth problems’ become “steeped in the ethos of neoliberalism” and take on the role of the state by enforcing the belief that the #SKILLSGAP is a byproduct of personal irresponsibility rather than structural failures.

Through the #SkillsGap narrative, "unskilled" ppl are “decontextualized, white-washed of any historical experiences or differences (eg gender, race), & treated solely as a private problem".... & #WrkDev policies or programs that don& #39;t recognize this should do some soul searching