People over politics should suggest that we give consideration for no cash bail for many minor offenders. A predicament: Even people who just get rowdy and loud, might have to fork over a month’s pay before their case is through. Bail is only the start of this expensive boondoggle for many. And often when there wasn’t even money to put food on the table, admittedly for various reasons, is what the altercation had at its root anyway. Meet two families stuck in this very costly, again in many ways, system. Not everyone has the money of a rock star.

Bail without cash, is an election year pitch. Or if not, didn’t have enough drug money to get out of your cold cell, even as the bell begins to chime.
But don’t worry when you vote, good people, there will still not be felons there. (And for more about some good people and their fittingly sparkling sign the length of a limo, reference the question on Where Did You See It. We’re only kidding about the noise ordinance at risk, there was that clap-dot-com segment of the signage).
But not to bail, here’s the backtrack to the more (somber) point: To get out of the merry-go-round in and out of your cell, but only as far as a courtroom, it will take many thousands of dollars even for many a type of minor misdemeanor. I merely want the punishment — and its financial cost that doesn’t really even help families — to fit the crime.
Just getting a public defender does not alleviate the cash crunch to exit incarceration until you are actually tried, and maybe found guilty. Or more likely just plea bargained at some point way down the line.
And those awful rock stars you fear will likely be … uhm … elsewhere also, not biggies for the voting booth. They could be poster children for this problem, since at its root are people who indulge, rightly ow wrongly, in certain things, and get to sing poignantly about the consequences. And how to fix them.
That was an over-generalization, of course. But in this article I will introduce you to a couple of actual families for whom the scenarios, of which cash bail is only the beginning of the legally induced or at least perpetuated money crunch, are very real. And you don’t get much of a chance to hear their words, as they get stuck behind bars for … God knows how long. I thought we were innocent until proven guilty. At that point being locked up for a while is OK … much of the time, but even the likes of petty theft can land you there, eventually, at least for a bit, clogging those very cells for only minor offenses. Via the dollars of both they and you taxpayers, as the system slowly grinds on in what has become an industry in itself.
There are people sitting in that judicial sinner’s box, in a back corner of the courtroom, that’s much like a scarlet letter to accompany their orange jumpsuits who are just, sorry to call it this, simple-minded to the point where they fall between the deep and wide cracks of the court system. And they stay put because, what, they often got there in the first place because they are in socio-economic-becomes-all-assets-to-be-tapped situations, if they have much money to spare at all. Do not deceive yourself, this becomes a cash cow situation for at least the county, and if you don’t have the bucks you’ll end up staying put in your cell at length before charges are even far into consideration. And we’re not just talking serial killer types here.
Minor offenders just get dumped into the probation system, and crimes usually involving at least sometimes a chemical or two soon to be legalized are often stuck there — for years on end. Or decades. Or nearing a lifetime.
Two such sinners in the eye of the system …
A poster family with a situation that that puts a human face on this, which produces frowns on offenders each day across our great land. The man was soft spoken when he spoke at all, and sorry to say, did not appear cerebral and having the education as such to be more than simple-minded. Quiet to the point of showing that he’d been beaten down by life, society, and especially the criminal justice system. Just listen to the judge pontificate, without really saying anything new, with hands partially folded and eyes cast downward at the table where all the allegedly “criminal” types sit through their whole time in the courtroom — except when required to sit in the same set of rows, like so many church pews, that also house the juries when they meet outside their box, hopefully, wearing demeaning orange jail jumpsuits. His significant other, don’t know if they were married, sat far away and appeared to be of the same mind set and challenged skill set, it just that his/hers in frustration did something to her/and the kids. “Hit here?” Maybe even just shouted too much?
As I watched this unfold, this becomes clear as the sun and day criminals never see in their fully walled “rehabilitation” cells: These and other such people don’t need to be counseled at length about their criminal ways; all they need is a bit of help with their parenting — official or unofficial and you wonder if he/she had the educational background needed to fully know such things and did they even complete high school and home ec and this does not mean that experience is the best teacher? — and they will not be here in court again and we’ll all be good. But for now back in your cell, to remain there until the attorneys and judge can fit you in around their calendar, with many a vacation, even if its just an extended weekend at the cabin.
A second do-round on this …
I met a man who drives for a service that provides transportation to elderly and disabled people, who has a 32-year-old son with ADHD and bi-polar disorders, a combo that lands many people in and out of jail for years for low-level offenses. He currently, the father said, has been incarcerated in Montana for about a year, not his first time around with this. I asked what crime landed him serving so much time and the dad appeared dumbfounded by the question and had no ready answer. He did know this much: The son had his medication taken away upon entry and he believes has not gotten it since. That is a killer set of bad circumstances, for someone with those conditions, that sometimes has meant just that when a doctor is not part of the picture, and that apparently is the case with his case. Dad himself appears to have Asperger’s and is just too simply-minded to be an advocate for his son, who probably just needs a good lawyer to see that he gets medical help and not another ticket to jail, eating up taxpayer money to have him housed, meaning Joe Citizen has a vested interest in him getting clean. But then we are talking major bucks again, this time for the charged young man, if that prodigal son ever even was? Is this yet another case of someone not making bail and being held for months for a crime that when all is said and done, probably would end up, with a good lawyer and not a public defender, being a small fine — not nearly what the bail would be — and a large amount of probation.
Does such a man, with his medical condition, even deserve to be legally punished at all? Or a slap on the wrist? The general populace would be better off from a money standpoint, just to get him some serious help at Mayo. That is a very layered and complex situation that I hope to undertake later. But for now, a showcase of all the fees someone like this man will end up paying, keeping him poor enough so that he feels he will have to do something criminal to simply survive, and he lands back in the pony again …
The winners and losers.
There are so many fees that benefit so many different agencies. (And if not so, why all the obsession with prosecuting petty criminals. I get the community policing benefit to all those on the straight and narrow, but that explanation only goes so far). The answer is always to achieve/force absolute sobriety. Screw the idea of having a glass of wine, just one, with your significant other over dinner to mend fences. Oh, you were rotting in jail anyway and could not be there and attend. For her. For the kids.
How’s this for fees? That second AODA assessment, since a couple of years had passed since the first one, which was passed. A total of $309, footed by the alleged criminal. And the judge left it sit on the shelf and never looked at it! (Actual example). And there’s the possibility of having to pay for regular alcohol/drug testing fees. Then domestic abuse assessment, when the assessor gets wrong the instructions, although they’re implicitly spelled out more than once, so the judge needs to weigh at length if it need a redo, the right kind of behavior to be scrutinized this time, again on the offenders nickel. (Second actual example). And you have to pay for seeing a probation officer, who often will pick up the slack by needing knowledge also in psychology, relationships of all types, financials and hopefully later on fiscal responsibility, science and medicine … These are the people in the criminal justice system that totally win the game. (But if you can’t get transportation to their office at the other end of a city at a time, or can’t be available at all times during a wide range that was given just an hour or two before, more fees).