Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States. So what is the significance of this, you may ask? Well, it is very concerning from a civil liberties perspective, because once an individual has been charged with a crime and is under a court order, they have basically lost their rights. A judge will typically issue an order with all sorts of restrictions and special requirements, and if the individual does not comply he can be thrown in jail. So it is basically a coercive threat. Now of course this is a normal part of the criminal court system, but what is so disturbing is that there are so many people who are having their freedom taken away. What if charges were filed against everyone? Then it could basically become a totalitarian dictatorship overnight. The courts could ransom huge sums of bail money from the entire population, and continually blackmail them to follow any court order or they would lose all their property, not to mention have a warrant out for their arrest. The U.S. has passed so many laws, virtually anyone could get caught up and entangled in them. One does not even need to have actually broken a law, they just have to gather some "evidence" that you might have broken any one of the countless laws and regulations that most people are unable to even keep track of. While 1 in 31 adults in America is on probation or parole, or in prison, twenty-five years ago, the rate was only 1 in 77.
States, Counties and Cities rely on fines, probation fees and so on. Law Enforcement no longer uses common sense when determining whether or not to arrest someone. Way too many college students and young adults have arrest records, partially because the State has taken control from parents and simply arrests their kids. Once a person is arrested and put on probation they are "part of the system" and everything that follows is designed to make the individual fail and remain in the system. #1. a person on probation has difficulty maintaining a job because they must report frequently to their probation officer, possibly attend therapy, attend classes and in cases of alcohol or drug offenses be randomly called to take drug tests on any given day. Many employers will not deal with this or even hire anyone on probation. Leading me to the second problem. If you don't have a job how can you afford to pay monthly probation fees and fees for each drug test you must randomly take? If you can't pay, you go to jail. A class B felony or jail able offense can mushroom into lengthy incarceration. Private prisons are a big mistake. Private prisons have no incentive to release/rehabilitate prisoners because they get paid by number of those imprisoned. It is a huge racket and the tax payers are paying for it. Down with private prisons. Prisons should be used to incarcerate violent individuals and individuals who have been put in rehabilitative programs but failed to be rehabilitated. Not persons addicted to prescription drugs, prescribed by licensed physicians, not people caught with small amounts of marijuana, not people stopped for a misdeamenor traffic violation then accused of DWI, (unless a persons exhibits signs of intoxicated driving they should not be subjected to breath tests for a minor traffic violation. I am tired of seeing outright drunks get away with it even when I call 911 while others are unfairly arrested because they blow .09
In many places they arrest homeless people for "sleeping in a public area" and hit them with a substantial fine. When they can't pay the fine, they are arrested again. Often they can end up spending months behind bars just for a single incident. Ever heard of debtor's prison? They used to throw people who couldn't pay back their debt into a dungeon and not let them out until they paid back their debt. Of course, how was someone supposed to pay back their debt if they were locked in a dungeon? Many poor were kept in prison their entire lives, if they didn't have some family member who could pay their debt. They're just throwing people in jail for the slightest thing now, or for the slightest suspicion. One kid was caught simply burning a styrofoam cup on the sidewalk curb in front of his house and was put in jail for a week. Another college age guy got drunk and walked into someone else's house while they were home. He didn't make any trouble, just laid down on their couch and the homeowner called the police. He was arrested, spent 3 days in jail, and then was sentenced to a year of not being allowed to leave his house and having to wear an electronic ankle monitor. These are typical stories. And let's not forget that more and more things are being classified as a "felony" now, not just the really bad things. When most people hear the word "crime", they think of murder, stealing, serious violence, things that are obviously morally wrong. But the way things have been changing, the word "crime" might soon lose its traditional connotative meaning. You could drink three glasses of wine, and then on your way home accidentally crash your car fifteen minutes later (a sharp turn on an onramp being very slippery after the rain). Seeing this, a bystander could call an emergency number and the police could show up. A breathalyzer test would "reveal" that you had a high alcohol content in your breath, and you might be too disoriented from the crash to walk in a straight line. You would then be arrested for "driving under the influence". Even though the crash was probably not actually caused by the wine, and the breathalyzer test was not really accurate because you had just drank the last glass of wine so soon before. This, in fact, is exactly what happened to one of my family members.
