Dear Editor:
What d'ya gotta do to get into jail in this town? It must be pretty difficult as illustrated by the story in the News Tribune on July 22.
One Raymond Morris was arrested for the 49th time for burglary and given a few days in jail and then probation. That'll teach him! I bet he'll never to THAT again. Or NOT! And who knows how many other crimes he has gotten away with completely. But he is still out walking our streets
In fact, back in May, the justice system was nice enough to provide him with a perfect "booty" bag, in the form of his property bag from the jail. With this bag he just popped into Family Dollar on his way home and loaded the bag up. It all worked out perfect.
Having lived for some years in the state of California I can tell you that they have a Three Strikes law that works! Three crimes and you are put away for a minimum of 25 years. They call them "repeat offenders." One guy was sent up for his 25 years for stealing a slice of pizza. That seems a little extreme but that was the law. I would not advocate being quite that strict, but 50 crimes! Seems like with Mr. Morris a pattern of behavior is developing.
Of course we can't really blame Mr. Morris. The man's gotta have his drugs! You don't really expect him to WORK for the money, do you? Why don't we just issue him a "stealing license?" This seems to be, in effect, what the justice system is doing for him. For my part, I didn't know I could commit all those crimes and still be out on the street, on probation. Maybe I should try it some time. It seems like the penalties are minimal.
The article doesn't say which court or which judge issued this ruling. Maybe I don't want to know.