[fc417fc802]

> The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth.

The truth is much more complicated and involves politics. For example Seattle (and possibly other cities?) enacted a law that involves paying damages for being wrong in the event of bringing certain types of charges. But that has resulted in some widely publicized examples where the prosecutor erred by being overly cautious.

[FireBeyond]

And then you have Florida who will bill you about $100 a day for finding yourself in a Florida jail, regardless of whether charges were dismissed, you were found not guilty or any such thing.

And to nobody’s surprise, failure to pay this bill is in itself a Class B felony…

[fc417fc802]

That sounds like a recipe for domestic terrorism - the systemic disenfranchisement of people who have done nothing wrong for no apparent reason other than sheer greed. How long has this been in effect there?

[cucumber3732842]

The system doesn't push the issue on people who can't afford it. Blood from a stone and all that.

[fc417fc802]

I'm confused. Are you suggesting such a ridiculous system is letting class B felonies slide here? That would certainly be the pragmatic approach to being evil but in that case simply treating it as regular debt and going through civil channels would be more than sufficient.

[cucumber3732842]

Are you letting stuff in your backlog that you'll never get to before the product is gone or irrelevant "slide"?

Sure they could round those people up pretty easily just by following up on any contact with the system that they have, but why, for what, to cost the state more money that will likely never be repaid? Especially when sticking a body on DUI detail is hugely in the black. They'll just let that debt, it's accruing interests and the threat of further incarceration linger on the books indefinitely. If the person ever gets their life together they'll have to pay it or face incarceration.

I'm sure someone somewhere has written a DB query to select from outstanding balance where <exists in some other DB that is a proxy for people who have money to pay> and prioritize those cases.

[FireBeyond]

Are you suggesting that Florida it’s to go ‘soft on “crime”’? That would fly in the face of almost all available evidence.

I have extended family in Florida. The system absolutely can and does and will push the issue. There’s a reason that it’s a crime not to pay for your incarceration even if you have a finding of factual innocence against you.

[cucumber3732842]

Your family isn't sleeping under a bridge or whatever. Of course the system wants your money or the money of people on comparable economic footing you associate with. If you can work as a debt slave to the system it wants you to do that even if it means a never ending cycle of robbing peter to pay paul, sleeping on other people's couches, etc. The man sleeping under a bridge cannot, so the cops and the DA and everyone else just go fry bigger fish. Maybe they push the issue 1/100th of the time and incarcerate someone every now and they but they absolutely do not prioritize it the way they do someone who could pay even if only by moving heaven and earth. The system doesn't want to manufacture yet another felony and then incarcerate someone for it out of thin air, that just costs the system more money.

Source: my tiny keyhole view into the system. The parties involve always have have discretion to downgrade stuff to something else, or not pursue it at all and are incentivizes.

[FireBeyond]

> The system doesn't want to manufacture yet another felony and then incarcerate someone for it out of thin air, that just costs the system more money.

You say this like Florida doesn't have both the most private prisons in the country, and the most inmates held in such facilities.

"The system" doesn't care. Florida has, repeatedly, shown a willingness to cut back on education and healthcare.

And private prisons have repeatedly been shown to be a hotbed of corruption.

[autotune]

That sounds absolutely terrifying.