Do we really need to lock people up for everything? According to multiple sources, in the “Land of the Free”, we have the highest prison population rate in the entire world, accounting for about 25% of incarcerated individuals worldwide while only comprising 5% of the world’s population. It makes me wonder what country actress Lori Loughlin thought she was living in when she mistook the threat of prison time for her role in the college admission scandal as only a bluff. I only wish it were a bluff.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the rule of law and holding everyone equitably accountable when they break the law. What Loughlin assumed was that she wouldn’t be held accountable because she is both rich and famous. That too, has been how America has operated for a very long time. The rich can hire high priced lawyers to defend them while the poor take plea deals for crimes they may not have even committed because they have no money to mount a good defense under the threat of an even longer prison sentence. Last year I served on a jury where the defendant, a poor Latino male with mental health issues, had already served nine years hard time for possession of marijuana-time that wouldn’t even warrant arrest today. Of course this is the nature of our broken and inequitable criminal justice system. The poor, black and brown people, and the mentally ill make up the majority of our prison population. Many shouldn’t even be there. The poor, particularly black and brown people, are more frequently targeted by police, prosecuted, and then given longer sentences for similar crimes committed by wealthier Americans.
On top of this, our society has made the mistake of allowing capitalism to infiltrate our prison system. When there is a profit to be made in incarcerating people, the whole society loses. Not only is the system is unfair to the people locked up and to their families, but it is unfair to the tax payers. We could and should find alternative methods that improve society while also holding people accountable.
Lori Loughlin shouldn’t go to prison. She also shouldn’t just be given probation. She should instead be made to pay monetary retribution to society and social retribution in the form of community service. These people who steal from the common good, should pay what they stole three-fold, first to the people who were directly harmed and second to society in general. In Loughlin’s case, I would like to see her pay 1.5 million dollars in endowed scholarships for low income students to attend the elite college (U.S.C.) where her undeserving daughter was enrolled because of her $500,000 payoff. Second, I would like to see her do community service where she helps to improve the lives of others through her own labor.
In my estimation, the only people who belong in prison are those who have committed violent crimes against other human beings and animals. This includes those politicians in Flint, Michigan who allowed whole communities to be poisoned by lead in the water. Prison should be reserved for rapists, murderers, and violent offenders. Everyone else who breaks the law should be forced to provide restitution to their victims and to society in general. If you are caught stealing a car, you should be required to pay the owner back as well as pay a fine to the community plus doing community service.
Our current system punishes us all. We spend an estimated $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to keep people locked up, feeding them three square meals a day, and providing them with medical attention. Those dollars would be better spent on giving would be offenders actual jobs, improving education, childcare, health care, mental health care, and infrastructure. Our current criminal justice system is a misappropriation of tax payer dollars.
It is high time that we demand that our lawmakers reform our system of justice so that it is not only more just, but also more cost effective with our tax dollars. I want Lori Loughlin to pay for her misdeeds. I don’t want the rest of us to pay for her to go to prison while lining the pockets of the private prison industry.