> Man, that's cold. The U.S. incarcerates a bigger share of its
> population than any other country in the world. We criminalize things
> that shouldn't be criminalized. Yeah, sure, there are real scumbags
> in prison who belong there. But there are a whole lot of people who
> are there because of poverty, bad luck, mean-ass judges, shitty
> lawyers, mistakes, lying cops, preposterous drug laws, and a whole
> lot of other things that should inspire a decent person's sympathy.
I'd wager that there's probably even a decent percentage of the aforementioned scumbags who are also there because of those reasons. I had traffic school once taught by an off-duty Berkeley Police officer (a sergent, if I recall) who somehow got onto a discussion about guns. He said (unprompted, I swear) that he was uncomfortable with the blanket prohibition of convicted felons from possessing firearms "Because who is a 'felon' these days? A poor guy who can't feed his family who winds up in a 7-11 doing the most desperate thing he can think of?"
An Wojtek says that cops don't have compassion :-)
FFT.
/jordan