Let me tell you a little story about why this issue is still important to me 20 years later.
Just the other day, I had to get up early to take a young friend downtown for a court date. It was a violation hearing for failure to pay a fine for a DUI/underage drinking. Not knowing any better, he took the ARD deal (Accelerated Recovery Disposition).
The kid is not a whiner. He knew he messed up and never complained about getting busted. Instead, he surrendered his license, parked the car and started paying fine; $1800 over 12 months. He had been keeping up for the first 4 months, then lost his job due to lack of reliable transportation. Then lost his housing due to inability to pay rent. So he wasn't complaining about the violation hearing, either. He just wanted to go, talk to the judge, explain the situation and get back on track.
Well, he had the wrong date for the hearing, we were 3 days early. So they sent him down to the DA to get the correct info.
So far, everyone we'd dealt with at the courthouse, including (maybe especially) the 6'4" bailif was just as decent and civil as you could want. That's just the way people are around here and that's one reason why I love these yenzers so. Failure to come up with a sum of cash in this economy is not usually treated as a contemptable crime, provided that the person is eager to stay in touch and do all they can to get the sum paid as quickly as possible.
But this DA is, aparently, not from around here.
So the kid walks in, gives his name and asks for a copy of his subpoena. While the clerk is fetching a pen and paper to write it down, he says he'd also like to look and see exactly what he's already paid. Instead of just telling him or declining to tell him (whatever!) in a professional manner, she snatches the file up off the desk, opens it up saying "Oh sure, mister! (she actually said "mister"!) I'll tell you
just what you've done!
So she opens the file and starts reading, in a very angry, condescending tone, about what he's paid. Now, mind you, this woman had no clue, up to this point, about any of the kid or any details of his case. In fact, she never noticed that she kept repeating the error that he'd already had a year to pay this off. In fact, it had only been 6 months. His only violation was failure to maintain the $50/mo min while he was looking for a job and a place to stay (both of which he's found by now, so he's ready to negotiate).
The kid is still not arguing, acting pissed off or frightened or anything. Her brow beating is having no effect except to slightly amuse us both and sort of embarass te clerk. He asks her what to expect at the hearing and offers that he can pay $150. That's when I really understood what this uber-bitch is all about. As soon as she found out the limit of his ability, she raised the bar by $50.
Uber-bitch says "Listen, young man! You had BETTER not show up here Tuesday with less than $200!" Then she goes on to explain how damned lucky he is to have a chance to expunge his criminal record, w/ detail about how much difficulty he'll have finding work and such. "But, if you don't
want to pay, then you can just go to jail!" So he says "No, I
want to pay. But all I have is .... So cuts him of and goes on a little more about what a hard time he's going to have without her "help" and tells him he's free to withdraw from the Program if he wants.
You see here? As soon as she found out how much cash he had, she set a requirement that she knew was impossible for him to meet, then went on lecturing him about how it's all his fault if he goes to jail because he doesn't
want to accept her benevolence.
So, seeing no other course but to either lie and say he'll come up with the other $50 or beg for it from sombody (I would have made it a Christmass gift, but the kid's already feeling like a bumb for sleeping on our couch for free the past month, so he never asked), he took the only other option left open to him. "Yes, that's what I want then. I'll withdraw and just do my time and be done with it."
That
really pissed off the benevolent rehabilitator. It was like sombody hit rewind and turned up the volume. She started over
again about how stupid and foolish he was being and asked "Is that what you want??!!" "Well", he says, "I can't give you money I don't have, so if I stay in the program I'm just going to keep violating. So, where do I sign?"
So she (finally) opens the file and points to where he can sign himself out. While he's doing that, she's making smart assed remarks about "Well, the good news is you won't have to come back here Tuesday. Now, go upstairs to room (whatever) and tell them you've been
kicked out of ARD!"
Now... why would this woman tell this kid to lie like that? Clearly, he had voluntarily withdrawn himself, so why would she tell him to lie and say she'd kicked him out? I swear to God, the first thing to come to my mind after watching how she operated was to ask her which program she 7th stepped from.
This is the reality of forced treatment through the courts. That people who think the Program gives us some kind of useful tools for dealing with life can operate within our justice system, schools and other areas of influence is just not acceptable to me.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it's victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."-- C.S. Lewis.
Step 1. We came to understand that the government is powerless over people's private use of drugs and that the War on Drugs was making the government's life unmanageable.
--Scott Tillinghast
