-- Dr. Floyd Ferris "Atlas Shrugged"
Not just at the federal level, but also at with states.
In a neighbor state, if two pot heads are sitting on a porch passing the last bit of a joint back and forth between them, they can be tried and convicted for “distribution of a controlled dangerous substance”, because it passed from one to the other. Simple possession of a small amount is a misdemeanor, but distribution is a felony.
In the same state, if you bounce a check and do not make good on it in some period of time (I have forgotten what it is - 30 or 90 days or somesuch) the state will assume intent to defraud, and a felony conviction will follow. The amount is irrelevant. Consequently, imbeciles who bounced their cable TV payments are routinely convicted as felons.
Substance abuse and nonpayment of obligations are both bad things, but please!
Even worse, I remember a case a while back where conflicting laws over this meant that you were in violation of the law no matter what you did. Comply with one, violate the other.
That is exactly how one identifies a tyranny.
The entire ‘adversarial’ system of justice needs to be tossed in favor of something more like the French ‘inquisitorial’ system in which the common incentive of all parties involved is a determination of facts. NOBODY should ever have any sort of a money or career incentive to put people in prison. The job of DA should not exist.
But...
But...
Osama’s dead!!! What a buzz-kill to post things to remind us that NOTHING’s CHANGED!!!!!!
/sarc
Example: a good percentage of the US Congress, past and present. Consider the charges leveled against Bernie Madoff and compare them to what our elected officials do day in and day out with their tax generated Ponzi schemes and the bribery, extortion, embezzlement and larceny that accompany the distribution of funds confiscated from productive Americans under false pretenses.
But government needs those kinds people walking around free...otherwise, the public will stop demanding new laws!
Don't expect any of these laws to be rolled back voluntarily, since they were implemented by design. The System is working exactly the way all self-perpetuating systems work - it must continue to grow or it dies.
The law enforcement economy is a large and important part of the US economy, doesn’t the author realize that? It is the one economy that can be promoted as protecting citizens. The one economy that is protecting the weak and downtrodden. Give thanks that we have elected officials who see the need to protect us from ourselves.
Pay to build the jail and it is a waste not to fill them. /s
We need to relax some laws — a friend got arrested for have a pic of his son on a bear skin rug. (The worker at the photo lab at Walgreens thought in was child porn.)
Same minds created the problem ...aren’t capable of the solution...
Period.
Everything else is part of the malaise that is killing our Country and stifling our prosperity.
The author’s argument leans heavily on anecdotal argument. What is needed is a list of the offenses that the author believes should not draw jail time and the number of people who are incarcerated for those offenses. Some of us might disagree with some of the offenses on the list.
Cost isn’t the only consideration, but those who complain about the cost of incarceration tend to ignore the costs that the public would incur if the perps were free — things like the cost of maintaining them when they cannot get jobs, the costs attributable to the illegitimate or criminally-prone kids they would father, and the cost of dealing with the crimes that some of them will inevitably commit because they are not in jail.
“Thank God we got penitentiaries.” - Richard Pryor