Spring Break
Larimer County jail too cool for your lame crime
Ryan Nowell
Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: Opinion
The last time most of us received a get-out-of-jail-free card, we were on our second lap around the Monopoly board, steering our pewter top hat down a long, humiliating road to financial ruin.
But now that our country is in the grips of actual financial ruin (the get-evicted, starve-to-death kind), we lucky folks of Larimer County might get another chance at skipping out on jail time or "tripping the exercise yard fantastic" as the hardened criminal types say. Or so I'd like to think.
To what do we attribute this dynamic opportunity? Well, according to the Denver Post, county budget constraints have started to cut a bit deeper than usual, forcing the Sheriff's department to fire 18 employees, most of whom worked the already understaffed county jail.
With the officer to inmate ratio now reaching critical Collegian fan-mail to hate-mail numbers, the county has been forced to cap the jail's maximum occupancy to avert a potentially disastrous situation/snippy counter-editorial.
So what does this mean for Johnny Onthestreet? It means that barring a more violent crime, the likelihood of your jail sentence getting delayed or deferred is going to be quite high for the next few fiscal quarters.
Suspects for Class 1, 2 or 3 felonies -- the stabby quotient -- are still going to be taken off the streets, but that's about it. Class 4, 5 and 6 felonies -- your fun-loving, weekend felonies -- will get you booked, slapped with a bond and released, with possible court-ordered supervision.
With a whole host of crimes now dispensing with the customary overnight lock-up, law-enforcers will presumably have to keep burglary suspects and DUI offenders in check through a more esoteric and thoughtful "Sword of Damocles" approach, whereby offenders are gripped by a deep and ominous dread over their impending court dates. Citizens are skeptical, though it's been widely lauded by the Swedish existential filmmaking community.
Meanwhile, the county is trying to recoup some of their waning revenue by implementing rate hikes for a handful of misdemeanors (expired car insurance now setting you back a perfectly reasonable $600-$1,000). With the penalty for low crimes going up and the (immediate) penalty for high crimes going down, one can view this as impetus to up the stakes a bit in order to hit the new felonious g-spot.
But now that our country is in the grips of actual financial ruin (the get-evicted, starve-to-death kind), we lucky folks of Larimer County might get another chance at skipping out on jail time or "tripping the exercise yard fantastic" as the hardened criminal types say. Or so I'd like to think.
To what do we attribute this dynamic opportunity? Well, according to the Denver Post, county budget constraints have started to cut a bit deeper than usual, forcing the Sheriff's department to fire 18 employees, most of whom worked the already understaffed county jail.
With the officer to inmate ratio now reaching critical Collegian fan-mail to hate-mail numbers, the county has been forced to cap the jail's maximum occupancy to avert a potentially disastrous situation/snippy counter-editorial.
So what does this mean for Johnny Onthestreet? It means that barring a more violent crime, the likelihood of your jail sentence getting delayed or deferred is going to be quite high for the next few fiscal quarters.
Suspects for Class 1, 2 or 3 felonies -- the stabby quotient -- are still going to be taken off the streets, but that's about it. Class 4, 5 and 6 felonies -- your fun-loving, weekend felonies -- will get you booked, slapped with a bond and released, with possible court-ordered supervision.
With a whole host of crimes now dispensing with the customary overnight lock-up, law-enforcers will presumably have to keep burglary suspects and DUI offenders in check through a more esoteric and thoughtful "Sword of Damocles" approach, whereby offenders are gripped by a deep and ominous dread over their impending court dates. Citizens are skeptical, though it's been widely lauded by the Swedish existential filmmaking community.
Meanwhile, the county is trying to recoup some of their waning revenue by implementing rate hikes for a handful of misdemeanors (expired car insurance now setting you back a perfectly reasonable $600-$1,000). With the penalty for low crimes going up and the (immediate) penalty for high crimes going down, one can view this as impetus to up the stakes a bit in order to hit the new felonious g-spot.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
CSU Grad
posted 2/25/09 @ 1:42 PM MST
'Course, with the average senior deputy grossing well over 6 figures...one might think the real cause of the budget crisis is, well...over-paid, goof-offs. (Continued…)
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