Because the only argument that anyone can raise about why they’re different is “Just Because.” Sorry, that’s not good enough.
Why? Others have said this, but why do some people in this thread believe poor folks are less likely to return a book on-time? Used correctly, the library is free to all. Even used incorrectly, a day or two overdue is only $0.50 or $1.00 in fines.
And besides all that, there’s no rule that states you have to return on the due date. You could return it early. Or, if a real emergency kept you from returning your book on time, you could call the library and plead your case. We’re not cold-hearted bastards. Fines can be waived.
Ha! It is to laugh. Ten of thousands of dollars worth of library materials go missing every year. Trust me, the members of the public who ruin it for everyone else do it in a big way.
The library is not constructed for the sole purpose of lending out keyboards. The mission statement of the library is not to put keyboards in the homes of people for weeks at a time. It’s a stupid, inapt analogy. Sorry.
The purpose of a library is to let people, even encourage people to borrow books, CDs, and DVDs. For weeks at a time! During which other people aren’t able to use the materials! Any person with proof that they live in the library district limits, no matter how crazy, poor, stupid, or smelly.
If this law doesn’t disproportionately affect the poor, I’ll eat my keyboard (stolen from a library, natch). Poor people move a lot more often (thus missing all those notices), don’t have as much leisure time, have more insecure living arrangements, etc. And finally, they don’t have the same ability to just pay to make the danger of arrest disappear.
And finally, you unsurprisingly missed my point about the money saved by the library system. No doubt they have thousands of dollars in missing and damaged items. My question is how much they save by referring these hard cases to the courts. Once it gets this far, I doubt they collect hardly ever (besides this present case where they got the book back). How much saved is worth arresting delinquent patrons? 100 bucks?
Then you haven’t been listening. In your example, if the library had $20 keyboards “for rent” and they got checked out, and then that person wouldn’t return it, then, no I would not support issuing a warrant. I think it should be treated as a civil matter, sent to collections, ding the credit report, or even take it out of his state taxes if you want. We have all the information we need, and I personally think involving the criminal system for such a thing is overkill. We don’t do it for parking tickets here. We don’t do it for a failure to return a Blockbuster video. That’s why for a library book, it feels like overkill to me when there are other avenues of recourse.
It’s called Theft by Conversion. The specifics vary from state to state, and AFAIK it’s normally used only as a last resort, when other avenues of recourse have failed. Like in this case.
And the reason we have laws like that is because of BS claims like “It’s not stealing if I borrow it and don’t give it back.”
Yeah, and in that case it’s limited to replacement value over $100, which a $20 book doesn’t clear. Send it to collections, like you would that Blockbuster video.
Call it BS all you will but I think there is a moral difference between intending to defraud and being a deadbeat. It may not turn out practically to make much of a difference, but, yeah, I feel different about the guy who goes in and smuggles a book out of the library vs the guy who borrows a book, then is too lazy to return it (or ignores all collection efforts). One to me is a crook; the other to me is a deadbeat. You view them the same; that you’re prerogative.
I understand your point of view. I personally think treating it as a civil matter is more appropriate. That’s all.
So, wait, am I reading that right? If you’re 20 days overdue on a book (or, sorry, 20 days after having received first notice of it being overdue), you can be fined up to $200? That seems a bit much to me.
I actually remember a similar story a while back on the local news in Maine. The police showed up to this guy’s home to arrest him for it, and he literally pointed to the book and said “it’s right there, take it back.” They arrested him anyway.
Do you feel that people who commit other kinds of crimes shouldn’t be arrested unless their arrest will definitely lead to full restitution for the victim? If someone stole $100 from me I’d consider that a crime worthy of an arrest, even if I never got my money back. But this particular law actually says “In addition to a fine, the court may order that restitution be paid based upon the value of record plus the designated processing fee.” So while the original materials may not be recoverable, the library can at least get the money for a replacement from the person responsible for the loss.
Of course, one of the reasons we have laws that punish wrongdoing is to deter people from committing these acts in the first place. Perhaps the possibility of arrest has made the people of Copperas Cove a little more careful about returning their library books. That’s the best case scenario for the library, that people just return the books.
Or perhaps the law has made the poorest citizens of Copperas Cove less likely to use the library by criminalizing what is a civil matter in most other places. If I were an illegal immigrant, suddenly the library is out of bounds for me and especially my kids.
No, I recognize that the poor have much less of a safety net, something you seem to stubbornly refuse to acknowledge. I think we’re just rehashing the same arguments over and over at this point.
What safety net is needed to bring a library book back on time? I think a lot of people in this thread are being willfully ignorant about how easy the library makes it because we want people to use our services.
I stubbornly refuse to join you in your patronizing contempt for the abilities of the poor. Plenty of poor people manage to keep track of their library books and bring them back to the library within a reasonable period of time. People who can’t handle this responsibility shouldn’t be borrowing books from the library in the first place, but lack of responsibility is neither universal among nor unique to the poor.
You keep saying this, and yet you keep posting. Perhaps instead of making the same arguments over and over you should stop and think about whether maybe the reason why these arguments don’t seem compelling to any of the people here with actual experience working in libraries is because you’re wrong.
Patronizing contempt? Jesus. You’ve really lost it. I think the librarians in this thread (who I usually notice being normal, helpful posters in other threads) are just too close to this issue to look at it rationally.
It’s not patronizing to recognize that poor people can’t just cut a check like the rest of us if something goes wrong. But what could go wrong? Oh, about a million different things: your kids could lose their library books, your kids take their library books to your ex’s house and not bring them back, you could get evicted and not leave a forwarding address at your last place (thus missing all those helpful notices), you could drop your book in a puddle or leave it on a bus. There are a million ways to accidentally damage or lose library materials and about a million and one to purposefully do it. THE POINT IS THAT I CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR ANYTHING BAD THAT HAPPENS! Because I’m middle class. I will never go to jail for a library book no matter how bad my behavior is because I have a check book.
I get that you and Justin will keep repeating the same thing over and over. I guess I will too.
They could, however, contact the library and explain that something had gone wrong. It sounds like that’s all it would take to avoid an arrest warrant being issued in Copperas Cove, and in my experience public libraries tend to be pretty understanding.
Wow, it must be really important to you to convince us that the poor cannot be trusted with library materials.
Well put. Lack of income also does not automatically equate to willfully refusing to return someone else’s property for THREE YEARS, which this guy did and would have kept doing had law enforcement not intervened to recover taxpayer property.
This wasn’t an accident, this was intentional, willful THEFT. From the community as a whole.
Unless one wishes to say “poor” equals “stupid, intentional thief”, etc., whining about how actually enforcing laws and recovering taxpayer property is an undue burden on “the poor” reads more like “there shouldn’t be any laws or property rights, people should just be able to do what they want and take what they want with no regard for anyone else”.
Except that isn’t what the law says. I would expect (well, hope) that the librarians would be somewhat understanding but if the law as written like this, then it can be enforced like this. And it doesn’t help people who move without realizing their error and don’t receive the notices to return the book. They get a nice warrant regardless.
Wow, it must be really important to you to convince us that people should be arrested. See how lame that tactic is?
In all seriousness, I usually enjoy Lamia and Justin’s posts. Someone has clearly urinated in their library materials. And not paid for it.