I know that one should probably wait to opine on this matter until the plea bargain is in place and Andrew is busy spilling the beans on those above him, but frankly I think treating Enron executives with kid gloves sends the wrong message to hundreds of thousands of other parents imprisoned for crimes that cause a tiny fraction of the economic damage done by Enron and to the children of those parents who no doubt also have special needs in the area of moral guidance.
The message being sent: If you steal penny ante amounts you can go to jail for a long time. Your children might be sent to foster care and bounced around a terrible administrative nightmare of a social welfare system. You may have no control over any of this. You may be lucky if the state places you someplace where your young "innocent bystanders" can come visit you without a hideous long bus ride or can stay in touch without outrageously expensive collect phone calls.
Steal a lot and you will be able to afford high-powered lawyers. Bankrupt tens of thousands of employee families, many of whom no doubt also feel deep parental concern for their children's welfare. Rip off retirement plans. Steal REALLY a lot and you will be in a position to dicker with prosecutors about the "inconvenience" to your children of any potential imprisonment.
Do the Fastows have no relatives who could take in their wretched waifs? Do they not have, somewhere in the millions they have plundered, a few thousands or tens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars if necessary to pay responsible people to look after their children during the "inconvenience" of any imprisonment? In the worst case, can they not scrape together a few (million?) pennies to pay a family law specialist to help shepard their children through any encounters with the child welfare system?
I do not necesarily think that more jail time is what should be on the table in this case. The Fastows are likely to serve their time in some low security Club Fed that allows them to associate with others of their class. Their lodging will spare them both some of the indignities of jail and opportunities to interact with a broader range of people who pass through the criminal justice system. In other words, jail, even federal prison, while inconvenient, is likely to be the least of their concerns.
I suspect the thing the Fastows will understand most clearly is money. I imagine Federal prosecutors may be aiming for substantial asset forfeiture, but as long as deviation from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is being discussed, allow me to suggest a different kind of alternative sentencing, one that would truly serve the cause of equal justice.
I propose that, in return for consideration of the Fastows' childcare concerns, the Fastows be required to fund a special prisoner parent relief project. This project would provide legal assistance to support appeals, sentence reductions and other measures to reduce the family disruptions caused by imprisoning parents. The criteria for a given prisoner to get legal help would the that they are a parent with minor children, that they be convicted of non-violent crimes, that they be serving a sentence in state or federal prison, and that the economic scale of their crimes be less than the scale of the Fastows' crimes. This last criterion should probably cover all the parents in the state and federal systems who meet the other criteria.
I propose that the Fastow be required to fund this project until the project can demonstrate, say 300,000 person years of reduced incarceration. Assuming able lawyers should be able to achieve multiple years of "consideration" for many clients for an average of, say. $20,000 per assisted parent. the cost to the Fastows would be a few million dollars. At an average cost per incarcerated person year of $30,000, this measure would result in $90 million in savings to badly strapped public budgets. I could be induced to dicker about this total if the proposed program included educational options for parents, family support for incarcerated or newly released offenders, drug treatment or any number of other services that specialists in criminal justice might advocate. The important thing is simply to explore the benefits to the public if all parents enjoyed the same considerations being offered to the Fastows.
While I am aware of the danger that such a program could attract the blatant cronyism common to so many other Republican ventures, for the time being I will simply tout the nice Republican-sounding private approach to public problems and urge the court not to approve this without some way to provide close oversight. I urge the court and federal prosecutors to seriously consider this suggestion!
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