Quote:Do you even read a word I say, or do you just react the way you want things to be?


Let's go over your logic.


-No sympathy for a thief! Stealing isn't a mistake!

Yes, stealing is a mistake that people make. Just because you've never been in a situation in which you felt the need to steal something (which is, btw a misdemeanor, and one that is not supposed to carry jail time) doesn't mean that it isn't a mistake. People aren't perfect. I think they teach this somewhere....


-He should have gotten a job!

Don't see what the point of this is, other than to try to paint poor people as criminals and/or lazy. Nevermind the man was obviously in a desperate situation, and was selling his blood to try to make ends meet.


-You don't care that it cost him $200 more in fines

Okay, one... you obviously haven't been reading my posts, or you're misunderstanding them. Because the fine for stealing the beer was $200.00

He got the $75 fee for an ankle bracelet, because he couldn't pay his $200.00

He racked up $1000 -- 5x the original amount in fines

And that's perfectly okay with you, but a graduated system? Oh heaven's no. We can't do that.


-You've also yet to address the cost to taxpayers

--Cost of Sixty days in jail for this man being unable to pay $200: Very High

--Cost of creating a payment plan for him to be able to pay his fine: Much lower

--Putting him in jail for sixty days because he couldn't pay the $75 fee for the tracker? Also Unconstitutional. But who cares, the man's a thief.


So you'd rather spend more money on him spending time in jail for not paying his fines (thus costing the taxpayer more) than postpone his fee or create a payment plan that would allow him to pay it off which would cost the taxpayer less.


Wow. I mean, I thought the Libertarian viewpoint couldn't become even more befuddling, but it just did.

First the issue with a private company assessing a fee for a monitoring bracelet this is because he failed to pay the fine after committing theft. You claim we should either extend his ability to pay, forgive his debt, or offer him a lesser penalty. To me that is ludicrous your suggesting a system that rewards bad behavior with lesser penalty because of financial status. Secondly the private company using a monitoring bracelet is being contracted to manage a citizen because they have already violated the law. In the real world when a citizen violates the law ( I'm not even discussing if the law should exist here) they face penalties, those penalties are either collected and executed by the state or subcontracted to third parties. At this point said citizen isn't an innocent victim they are paying for the violation of law. You say prison should be avoided well the monitoring bracelet is the alternative. This guy then continues to not pay the fines this is AFTER he committed a crime, failed to pay the fine, failed to pay the fee for monitoring in substitution of jail time, and then failed to pay the fees for an extended period of time. That's four strikes and your surprised he goes to jail after that?

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