Take your pick: prison or war.

That's what some army recruiters are telling high school students in Houston, Texas to scare teenagers into joining the army.

On July 29th, 2008, a local CBS affiliate in Houston broke this story about illegal army recruitment tactics and a shady new strategy called the "Delayed Entry Program." As part of a $5 billion recruitment budget for 2008--that's right, $5 billion—Army recruiters ask high school students to sign a non-binding contract that says they intend to enlist in the army upon graduation.

You'd think the anti-prison activists would be cheering. Never in the history of California's prison expansion has there been such undivided media attention on the corruption of California courts, cops and jails. For 24-hours-a-day, for over 23 days, every local TV station, online news source or print paper was reporting on the inconsistent, illegal and incompetent practices of the LA County jail system. All thanks to one Paris Hilton.

The story they told was a simple one: rich, white people are treated differently by California law enforcement than the rest of us. And at a time when California is spending more money on prisons and jails than ever before, when more women and people of color are locked up than ever before in US history, this story couldn't be more timely.

Most readers of Wiretap are familiar with this gruesome state of affairs. The prison industrial complex is present in our everyday lives, at the root of so many of the problems we spend our lives fighting against. But it's not a story we expect to find running 24-7 on CNN.

So why wasn't this a media justice victory? Where were the voices of anti-prison activists?