Texas is a place that prides itself on the number of, and the way in which, people are imprisoned.
There must a lot of bad people in Texas, as you can tell by their prison population. Of course, most of them are people with beige or brown skin. Everyone knows that those people commit most of the crimes.
Right?
Well, the right-wing has this phony "toughness" thing they go on and on about, even though they are a bunch of pantywaists.
I've never met a right-winger who could hold-up in jail. They would be somebody's battered bitch in a matter of minutes. They talk about being tough guys, but that's only in relation to what they do to those unable to defend themselves, like the poor, the sick, the elderly and the infirm.
Going to jail is traumatic. Even overnight. It is disruptive and frightening as well as being inconvenient and generally expensive. I certainly hope sentencing judges think long and hard about imprisoning any first-time offender for a non-violent crime. Of course, if you are white it is unlikely you will ever go to jail for a non-violent first-offense (or second- or third). At your arraignment, you will be let go on your own recognizance and before you return for your court date, your lawyer would have bargained your crime down to a misdemeanor and you'll be free to leave court "without a finding," and if you keep your nose clean for some proscribed amount of time, it all goes away. If you are not white, it is unlikely you will get that same deal.
When you arrive in jail it is important to figure out the lay of the land. Pinpoint the leg-breakers, the enforcers, and more-importantly, pinpoint the quiet guys who are issuing the orders.
Then the game of cat and mouse begins. Smart people can navigate this complicated line of politics; but, stupid people often fall prey to insidious traps that find them covered in their own blood, promising to do whatever they are told.
The prison system is brutal.
In order to be tough on crime, slime-bucket right-winger judge Lanny Moriarty, sent 17-year-old honor student Diane Tran to jail for truancy because she had missed x number of days of school. The number is irrelevant. Ms. Tran is a 17-year-old who supports herself with multiple jobs and attends high school and is an honor student. She missed some days. Is this really the truant he should be chasing?
But, if you're a conservative, this is exactly the kind of person you want in jail: a hard-working, successful, non-white person. Let the bankers rape us and run free, but get those damn truants off the streets!
Judge Lanny Moriarty (what kind of name is Lanny anyhow?): you are an ass and an embarrassment to American justice and jurisprudence.
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