Respect for the Law

Kentucky man arrested for 1,000th time

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) -- He's hit another a milestone. A Lexington man, famous for how many times he's been arrested, took his 1,000th trip to jail.

Police arrested Henry Earl for alcohol intoxication, a charge he's faced hundreds of times before.

Earl is a pseudo-celebrity because of his extensive record. He's been featured on late night talk shows and has several websites dedicated to tracking his arrest record.

Earl's 1,000th arrest happened late Monday night on South Limestone. He'll be in court Tuesday afternoon to answer to this latest charge.

If you're wondering what 1,000 arrests equals, here's a look at Henry Earl's history.

In all, he's spent 4,123 days in jail.

35 of his 1000 arrests have been this year alone, landing him behind bars 189 days in 2008.

On average, Earl is out of jail about two days before he lands back behind bars, although this time he was out for four days before his latest arrest.

1,000 arrests. 4,123 days in jail. That works out to a little over four days in jail per arrest.

What does it say about our justice system here? To me, it says two clear and distinct things. First off, the concept of incarceration and rehabilitation fail for some people. That Earl didn't learn his lesson after the 10^th time or even the 100^th is blatantly obvious. The sentences were obviously either too lenient to make an impression or the "crimes" he was arrested for should not have been crimes at all.

Which is my second point. If the law is so feeble that a man can be arrested one thousand times in the span of a dozen years, why bother? Earl's peers see him in and out of jail, even to the point of gaining notoriety, and what message does that send about our criminal justice system? It says the system is broken, with little hope of repair.

When a man repeatedly engages in a pattern of behavior contrary to the laws of society, and we let him walk into, and out of, our penal system, it makes a mockery of that system. This man's record is either replete with crimes that should never have been considered crimes (public drunkenness, for example), or he should have earned a longer stay in the greybar hotel to make him re-think his lifestyle.

To allow a travesty of this magnitude, though, turns our penal system into a grotesque caricature of itself. We see a repeat offender sentenced to multiple incarcerations - 35 arrests this year alone for a staggering total of 189 days in jail - yet no reform of either the offender or the revolving door justice system that coddles him. At what point do we say "enough"? How many times must the system fail before we scrap it entirely? We need to reach a point where we say, "this is not working" and take steps to address it; otherwise we're simply saying "Do it again, only exactly the same".

It's high time we took back the justice system. Certainly we want to attempt to rehabilitate those that want help; however, once a recidivist has shown a certain level of contempt for the system, it's time to make the punishment more draconian. Perhaps adding multipliers per year - i.e., this is your 10^th arrest this year, we're going to multiply your punishment 10 fold. Harsh? On its face, yes. But considering that the offender would need to be arrested nearly once a month, arguably not cruel nor unusual.

In any case, someone as blatant as Earl needs to be dealt with in a more severe manner that he's been receiving for the past decade or so. 1,000 arrests, no matter what for, is unconscionable. Our system needs significant reform to bring itself back from the shallow parody that it is today, otherwise this will only deteriorate the longer it is allowed to metastasize. Unless and until we start dealing with criminals in a manner they can understand - cold, harsh, and immediate - we will invite more of the same.

And in that meantime, the politicians will stand over the bodies of the dead and cry out that they need to restrict my Second Amendment rights so it won't happen again. Bullshit. Making the goblins pay for their crimes, and dearly at that, is the clearest way to reduce crime. Not going after barrel shrouds or pistol grips.

That is all.