The local paper, thanks to the director of the regional jail authority, has made a startling discovery: most people in jail are poor! The story goes on to note that many folks in jail didn't have a job and have no real idea on how to get one (aside from the clever one who listed his employer as "Housebreaking, Inc."
This revelation reminds me of a quote from former WV Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely that is posted to my file cabinet at work:
Violent crime is almost always committed by the poor, the uneducated, or the stupid. Crimes of passion are committed by everyone, of course, but a trial involving a middle-class man meticulously planning the murder of his wife, so he can collect the insurance and run off with his secretary, is sensational precisely because it is so rare. Traveling salesmen who spend their off-hours robbing all-night grocery stores, married schoolteachers who take nights off to rape sixteen-year-old girls, and prosperous farmers who eliminate market competition in the neighborhood by setting fire to their neighbors’ barns are real oddities. Consequently, the entire criminal law system most often boils down to the powerful state with all its weapons – police, prosecutors, courts, prisons, and probation officers – going after poor, uneducated, stupid folks.
State v. Rummer, 432 S.E.2d 39, 55 (dissent).
Just about sums it up, doesn't it?
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