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Comment by 0xBA5ED | Hacker News Reader

>I think it is much better that a few folks don't show up to trial than to criminalize being poor.

>Why the heck would we put low-and-medium risk folks in jail, to be put in a position to lose their job, house, and freaking children, when we can do these other things that don't criminalize poverty while having less disruption of life?

Keep in mind, it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail. If the violation is minor and non-violent, then by the time it gets to that point, the person will have had many chances to straighten up (more often than not) and simply chose to ignore the warnings.

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But it is easy to get thrown in jail. This is especially true if your skin isn't white enough: How many stories do you hear of folks being in jail for having the description, "Tall black male?".

You act like everyone can avoid all things: Have you never met anyone put in jail for not paying child support when they don't have a job... in part, because they were put in jail for not paying child support?

Or... you can live in a weed-friendly state and forget you have some in your car while traveling. Jail for drugs now. Heck, you can be jailed for being in a house with drugs, even if you weren't doing drugs yourself. "Visiting a common nuisance" is a thing they charge folks with [1]. I don't think it is as common now, but at one time, it wasn't uncommon to get arrested while walking home drunk for public intoxication, even though driving would have been criminal. Indiana cops used to wait outside bars to arrest folks for this. While it might be prohibited now, this ruined lives and stuff like this still happens.

You don't have, "many chances". You just get caught or you don't, and you can get caught your first time. It happens. For some things, simply living in public housing increases your chances because of heavy police presence that isn't there for nicer neighborhoods: Sometimes nicer neighborhoods have conditions that make getting caught less because you are smoking weed in a spacious backyard rather than on a balcony where others can see and smell.

[1]https://www.in.gov/meth/files/Visiting_or_Maintaining_a_Comm...

>But it is easy to get thrown in jail. This is especially true if your skin isn't white enough: How many stories do you hear of folks being in jail for having the description, "Tall black male?".

I'm sorry to break your narrative, but this is NOT true in my experience at all. 99.999999% of the time, if you end up in jail, you knowingly engaged in questionable activity or associated yourself with criminal deviants. Doesn't matter what your skin color is despite the imbalanced frequency of reporting in the US.

Do you work at a jail? You must have lots of firsthand experience if you can calculate that frequency with precision to the millionths.

"99.9999999%" means "almost always". It isn't a precise calculation, which you know. Just look at the US arrest statistics. See how many total arrests there are annually and ask yourself how many of those could be for "no good reason". Even if it's a high percentage like 10%, it is still very unlikely to occur to the average person.

Everyone arrested is innocent. You seem to forget that.

Maybe you just don't have much experience, or don't realize the vague descriptions police will use to bring folks in. Systematic racism makes this more likely if you aren't white. Systematic racism is a big issue.

You can be arrested for being homeless or stealing food if you are starving (not everywhere has available shelters nor food pantries to go to, nor do shelters provide safe places for a family). I don't think this is being deviant. They'll sure charge you bail, though. And again, sometimes it is just a mistake. Live in a legal state and forget to take those joints out of the care before going to an illegal state? Well, now you have a drug charge. You can't teach nor be a pharmacist now.

People get arrested for "drugs" that aren't all the time (leaves, candy, etc), but I'm guessing you haven't spent much time around the sort of person that gets stopped for this sort of thing (generally, just young and alternative-looking with a crappier-than-average car). Some of them go to jail waiting on the stuff to be tested.

Your experience isn't broad enough. Just because you haven't seen these things in your corner of the world doesn't mean it is false.

>Maybe you just don't have much experience, or don't realize the vague descriptions police will use to bring folks in

>but I'm guessing you haven't spent much time around the sort of person that gets stopped for this sort of thing

>Your experience isn't broad enough

This is awfully presumptuous.

>Live in a legal state and forget to take those joints out of the care before going to an illegal state?

It is common knowledge that marijuana is not legal everywhere and there are a lot of restrictions. Honestly, "forgeting" your drugs in your car deserves a drug charge if you transport it somewhere illegal. People should be expected to maintain a minimum degree of personal responsibility in a civilized society. This includes following basic rules.

I can't speak on the experiences of the homeless.

Yeah, presumptuous, but based off of the words you chose to type - and continue to type.

Often, I find that discussion of "personal responsibility" often comes without a minimum of empathy or understanding. It is really easy to become comfortable with some things you buy regularly to be in your car, and really easy to forget that it is in your car. People forget things all the time. This is a common human error, and penalizing folks for life for a simple error seems harsh.

And sure, you can't speak on being homeless, but you can read about it and emphasize, at least. If anything, you can pretend you are planning on being homeless. Most of the stuff written won't enlighten you on being in a big city, and are written by folks that managed to come out the other side. Like this. http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2004/10/introduction-...

> it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail.

No one accidentally gets thrown in jail, its always an intentional act by another person.

And it is very easy to suddenly get thrown in jail, particularly if you are poor and/or non-white.

> If the violation is minor and non-violent, then by the time it gets to that point, the person will have had many chances to straighten up (more often than not) and simply chose to ignore the warnings.

That's...very much not true. It might be true if you are referring to post-conviction incarceration, it is very much not true when talking about pre-trial confinement as a means of ensuring appearance. Plenty of minor and non-violent offenses are arrestable, rather than merely citable, even if the accused has no prior record.

>No one accidentally gets thrown in jail,

Just as no one accidentally falls on a crucifix in the shower.

https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/catholic-priest-hospitalize...

This is clearly not a universal truth in the US justice system. It can be very, very simple to be suddenly and through no criminal fault of a defendant’s own that they end up in jail. [1]

1 - source is myself, my clients, and my jurisdiction’s arrest statistics, along with many,many media reports hat prove your point not true.

There seems to be a lot of confusion over this. I suppose because many people here don’t have direct experience. I’m wondering if there’s a good public source for arrest statistics and records that would go into more detail.

I would seriously doubt a good source exists. In fact, I am as certain as a single person in a single jurisdiction can be, that the records required to generate those statistics would require information unwillingly released from multiple governmental entities and that those entities would make it as hard as possible to generate meaningful data.

> Keep in mind, it isn't easy to suddenly and accidentally get thrown in jail.

Have you not paid attention to any protest in the US whatsoever in the past 10-15 years? It's VERY easy to get thrown in jail, even when judges have ruled mere months before that it's illegal for police to keep arresting protesters.

A ruling that you can’t be arrested for protesting does not mean you can’t be arrested while protesting.

Batter a cop? You’re probably going for a ride even if you were at a protest, which seems fairly reasonable.

We have plenty of examples of peaceful people being arrested, though. Including journalists. All you really have to do is be there, and then you can be taken in with a slew of excuses.

What solution would you propose? That protests are 100% ironclad arrest-free zones? That seems...unworkable.

There is more than one way to handle protests. You can stand by and observe, only really going in when something is amiss... or show up in riot gear as your first option. The second choice has been the choice with BLM protests - but is rarely the choice with, say, anti-abortion activists. And you know, I don't get it: If an African-American man can keep his cool while having to police an KKK march, why can't cops in general keep their cool with these?

Part of the issue is that folks are protesting the police themselves - namely, the systematic and blatant racism and police violence. The prudent measure, minimally, would be to have a background presence since they've not actually jumped on the chance to make real change. The Rodney King riots happened in 1992: We've had decades to try to change the face of policing. If anything, perhaps we should have started real change after any one of the incidences. Changed police immunity. Required more training. Try to reduce officer stress and weed out folks that were racist. Abolish police gangs. But that's much harder, and won't stop a protest while it is happening.

But it would actually stop them.

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