Quote Originally Posted by Gotch View Post
This may be a good example of what is so terribly wrong with our justice system and it impacts every one of us.

If they lock this young man up as Biggin points out they probably will and statistics say they probably will, then they directly impact the rest of his life, the life of his unborn child and probably others around him as well. It also indirectly impacts you and me by taking a productive member of the work force out of the tax paying column and places him in our care, probably for the rest of his life.

I'll explain some of this. The United States accounts for about 5% of the world population but we account for an astounding 1/4 of the world's imprisoned people. We have almost a million more people imprisoned than communist China which has more than 4 times the population that we have. This is not necessary by any standard. We lock people up for reasons and terms that astound and sicken even conservative experts from Europe and other industrialized parts of the world. By doing this we are taking potential taxpayers and turning them into dependents, in most cases for the rest of their lives. This in turn become generational and snowballs.

Politicians make more and more laws in order to court votes and sensible politicians are afraid to take a stand for fear of being branded as soft on crime while we continue to lock up thousands of non-violent, non-dangerous criminals and teach them to be dependent upon us for their needs while also training them in violence and hate.

Stupid beyond belief in my opinion.

Problem with that is that there has to be accountability for an action. You can't just say "I am straight now-please wipe the slate clean". Yeah the timing sucks,but it is what it is. In a perfect world,officials will consider what he has done as of late and give probation/go lean,but that also is what it is. I hear so much about how many Americans are locked up,but truth be told,we are missing many that should be. We paroled a killer a few months ago from my pod at work. This guy laughed at us as we took him to the gate. Weeks later he killed an innocent family whom he was jacking,and 3 more died because a judge went soft. There are two ways at looking at this folks