Fine and Punishment
If you have ever been on the receiving or the giving end of the
criminal justice reform machine and you are honest with yourself
you have probably, "although under your breath" ask the
question, "are we really trying to make them productive members
of society?"
I have ten years as a Police Officer under my belt and I served
most of my time working narcotics. If I would have read this
article 5 years ago I would undoubtedly have said, "What a
bleeding hart". However I have also for the last several years
been involved in treating substance abuse offenders. I
discovered something significant. Your attitude can quickly
change when a loved one gets caught in the criminal justice
rinse cycle.
Before I go on let me clarify my views. In my opinion there are
a group of people running around out there that need to be in
jail and that the only rehabilitation suitable is to keep them
away from society. However many of these offenders end up in
court ordered treatment, probation, Drug Court, work diversion,
and whatever else there is out there. I also believe that there
are a great number of offenders that are reform able addicts. In
fact I know many of them and can assure you there are many
addicts that want to reform, try to reform, and indeed do
reform. I have scene both sides of the coin and what I tell you
is the truth.
Let me paint a familiar portrait. John Doe 26 years old works as
a framer for a construction company. John started smoking
marijuana when he was 15 when he became depressed due to a
parental divorce. He quickly became addicted and has used
marijuana ever sins whenever he needed to cope. Marijuana opened
the door for some new drug experiences involving methamphetamine
which he now uses approximately once a week.
The drug use makes John somewhat unreliable at his job so he
finds himself bouncing from place to place and never moving up
or getting pay increases. Then John gets pulled over leaving the
bar one night, the astute officer quickly recognizes marijuana
paraphernalia in the vehicle and later finds a meth pipe with
meth residue on it. Now John is thrown head first into the
criminal justice system. The officer rightly charges john with
possession of meth a felony, possession of marijuana and
possession of paraphernalia a misdemeanor, and of course DUI.
Well John had it Cumming and at this point there is a great
potential for reformation.
John undoubtedly has a drug problem and the public defender is
going to use that defense as a means of getting the weighty
felony reduced to a misdemeanor. This happens and John is
ordered to get an assessment and follow recommended treatment as
well as have an interlock device installed on his vehicle. He is
also placed on probation, loses his drivers license, and has to
do 10 days in the county jail. Now all of this seems reasonable
after all he committed a felony and he was driving impaired.
Now before we as a society pat ourselves on our backs and
congratulate each other for such masterful handling of the
situation, let's see how all of this plays out for John. First
Johns' car was State impounded due to the DUI statute, his
already precarious financial situation makes the possibility of
getting his vehicle out of impound very difficult. John has lost
his license and is not supposed to drive he now has to put an
interlock devise on his vehicle that will cost approximately
$2400.00 depending on the location. John has lost his job
because he was replaced while he was serving his jail sentence;
a new job will not come easy because most blue collar work
requires a valid driver's license and a vehicle to drive to the
job site. John was living pay check to pay check anyway and now
his other bills are backing up. John decides if he is going to
survive he will have to drive regardless of the suspended
license.
John finally gets a job but he is now hopelessly behind on his
court fines and he has racked up several other fines for driving
on the suspended license. John scraped the money together for
the assessment but now has a warrant for non compliance because
he is late on his fine payments and he has not been able to pay
the money to attend treatment. Before long John is picked up for
driving on suspension and arrested on the warrant, the judge
wants him to know that he was serious about the order for
treatment and the fine payment so He lets john sit in jail for a
few days. John has lost his job again and now he is behind on
payment for several courts he still needs to come up with the
money for treatment and to get his vehicle out of impound so he
can try and get a new job.
Faced with the abundant financial stress and hopelessness
brought on by this impossible cycle John moves even deeper into
the drug use. Throwing up his hands John embraces the drug
culture and he will repeat this cycle for years.
We would all like to breathe a sigh of relief and say boy am I
glad that I am not a low functioning druggy. We all have choices
and obviously john has made some very bad decisions, but even if
John is low functioning don't we still want him to succeed and
to overcome his problems, isn't that what the system was trying
to accomplish.
Maybe you are thinking that John made his bed and now he can lay
in it, but if John was your son, brother or dad would you be as
willing to write him off as deserving the outcome of his
choices. Let me assure you John was someone's Son, brother and
dad. And so now the cycle did not end with John but is
perpetuated as I see John's kids entering the deadly cycle.