Again It's Crime

 AGAIN IT'S CRIME

Our legislature, true to form, has once again addressed one of  their two obsessions: crime.  The two stalwart areas of legislative action, crime and sex, give you an inkling of the minds of our legislators.  They apparently have a never ending fixation with these two areas of human endeavor.  From this  legislative impulse one must necessarily conclude that this is what they think about and which surely constitute unhealthy obsessions.

One of the accomplishments of this last legislative season was a revision of the bond schedule.  For those unfamiliar with the criminal process, a bond is the money that it will cost you to get out of jail pending the disposition of your criminal charges (there are usually more than one).

Bondsmen, or the individuals that will pay money to have you released from state custody are members of  one of the two oldest human professions - - bail bondsmen and prostitution.  One would think that we, as a species, would have come to terms with both of these two endeavors long before now, but alas it is not to be.

As I have mentioned previously, in medieval England, one can imagine that if you were charged with a crime, it would be possible, and maybe even probable, that you could simply disappear and hence cheat the hangman from his lawful employment.  Currently in modern America, it is rather difficult to disappear and it is becoming more difficult continuously. Hence, do we really need to take money from people  to get out of jail?

Coming up with the money to get yourself out of jail raises several questions that are simply ignored in maintaining this ancient tradition of requiring surety to be released.  First is the unquestionable fact that if you are arrested and being removed from home, family, and employment, you are being punished.  And this occurs only with an allegation.  

You say, this doesn't concern me: I'm not a criminal, I'm not going to commit a crime.  My response to that is there are hundreds, if not thousands,  of crimes.  Our legislatures makes new crimes every year.  I assure you that if you committed many of these crimes, you would not know you were committing a criminal act.  None of us know all of the crimes that exist and this is done on purpose.

Also, as I have said previously, you are presumed to know the law, i.e., what constitutes a crime.  This is how the government gets you.  You can't use ignorance as a defense.  So once you have been charged with a crime and taken to jail, you have to pay to get out whether you did the crime or not and if you can't pay, there you sit waiting for your case to be disposed of.  This results almost necessarily with lost employment, failure to make the rent or pay other bills that come due plus possible loss of pets and children.  And so what you normally do is plead guilty to something whether you did it or not just to get out of jail - a simple cost-benefit analysis.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo