Wednesday, September 24, 2008

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 10th time or even the 100th 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 10th 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.

9 comments:

JD said...

Wow, and this guy did it without the help of the Mass legal system? I am impressed that some other state is more messed up than we are!

Mulligan said...

something is seriously wrong when jail is more comfy than the barracks

what does it say about our nation when our criminals get more rights and are better protected by the system than our freedom fighters

Anonymous said...

How about this time he gets a day in jail for each of those 1000 arrests?
emdfl

Jay G said...

I think that's what happened, actually.

I saw a story very much like this on the morning news @ the gym, then found this story @ home.

The story on the news said he was sentenced to 1,000 days in jail. Which, when you think about it, is still pretty freakin' light...

TOTWTYTR said...

A lot of this would depend on why he's been arrested. If it's a lot of low level stupidity such as public intoxication, being a dope in the daytime, or a nitwit at night, it's unlikely that he's going to get much more than a day or two here and there.

If there are felonies mixed in, that's a different story.

Would six months in jail change his ways? Who knows?

It's hard to say much either way about the state of the justice system based on this case.

As I always caution people, don't make the rules based on the exceptions.

BobG said...

Sounds like they need to make jail less attractive to him. Chain gangs, anyone?

Anonymous said...

posted at:

http://www.theguncounter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1070

Anonymous said...

Great post, Jay. I really enjoyed reading it. Bob S. sent me over from my blog (I don't know if you know him).

Generally speaking the whole system needs an overhauling. Agreed. But what exactly do we do. Would you agree to releasing white collar criminals and making them pay huge fines and do community service? How about, drug possession? Can't we let them out too? I'd include even the low-level dealers. We could probably find other entire classes of people who should be in hospitals instead of prisons.

Once that's done, we'll have reduced the overcrowding. We can then stop releasing violent and dangerous people, especially the ones using guns (no offense).

Jay G said...

mike,

I'm probably the wrong guy to ask about what to do...

First off, get rid of capital punishment as it is practiced. Institute a faster system with *MUCH* better checks & balances, and then wire up electric bleachers.

Second, legalize. It is the absolute height of ignorance that we jail people for smoking pot but allow them to drink all the alcohol they want. What a fucking waste of resources.

Ditto other victimless crimes like prostitution, gambling, etc. Let the people drink/drug/fuck/gamble themselves to death. The more of the weaklings we get out of the gene pool, the better...

As for white collar crimes (i.e. non-violent); I think we'd see much lower incidents if we made them pay treble damage restitution and also allowed scourging...

Like I said, wrong guy to ask. Put me in charge, I'll make Sheriff Arpaio look soft...