Level of douchbaggery is inversely proportional to length of sentence,
beginning with sentences of one day. Also, putting someone in jail on
account of one parking taicket might be considered a miscarriage of justice.
Since you were only in for one hour your jail time does not make you a
douchebag, although defending people like that subject of the OP might
land you in douchebag territory.
Although there may be a few (very few) civil disobedience and other exceptions
I think it is likely that 99% of the people who go to jail are there because of douchebaggery.
I do not believe that is all there was to it, as in you probably smart-assed
the cop, which is always a douchebag move.
BUT, if you were actually hauled off as you imply above without being given
a chance to discard the offending bottle, that would be miscarriage territory.
Also, there is that 24-hour grace period before douchebagishness is reached.
How any non-bigtime dealer can get busted for pot these days is beyond me.
You gotta be some kind of douchebag-level flagrant about it.
1% might be an exaggeration, but I would say the overall rate
of false conviction is in the single digits, and for offenses such
as DUI it might be less than 1%.
Call up the jail where he’ll be residing. Ask for a copy of their rules on visiting and mailing things to inmates (assuming you plan on visiting or sending packages to him). No sense showing up and then finding out you won’t be allowed in or mailing him soemthing he won’t be allowed to receive.
Find out if there are any support groups for family members. These will be people who are going through the same situation you are and can offer you support and helpful advice.
Further you make the assumption that every law a is good one, or that every one indiscretion represents someone’s entire being. Something like rape or murder, yea I agree that’s a bad person who has some serious bad karma. Public intoxication, or minor defacement, regrettable, but well not so much. Someone shoplifting food because they don’t have any? Well that’s a problem, but not a bad person so much as a troubled person.
Really Not All That Bright, I’m not a duachebag until the time police catch me!
For those who didn’t read the link, students were told they were going to be tested on how fast they could type. But they were told that there was a bug in the computer and they shouldn’t hit the alt key. None of this was true.
The actual test was when the monitor came in and said the student had hit the alt key while they were typing fast (which was also not true). The student they used as an example didn’t flat out deny it - he said he didn’t think he had. But when the monitor insisted he had witnessed the student hit the key, the student agreed.
But that doesn’t seem like a false confession to me. Most people in that situation wouldn’t be sure whether or not they had accidentally hit the alt key. So they’re not really agreeing to something they know is untrue as much as they are conceding they don’t know what the truth is. Obviously that’s not usually going to be the case if somebody’s being questioned about a murder - most suspects aren’t going to be in a situation where they think it’s possible they may have killed somebody and they’re just not sure.
The telling thing, which I quoted, was they confessed even when faced with harsh penalties. Further you have to bend your fingers in some pretty odd poses to accidentally hit the alt key while touch typing. I think most people would know if they hit the alt key. When was the last time you accidentally hit the alt key?
How computer naive do think college freshmen are these days?
If an interrogator lies to your face, angrily yelling at you he has witnesses, evidence, and the like about how you’re going to go to jail for a very long time, unless you make this little deal what do you do? Pretend you’re the naive trusting sort. Do you take a hit for something you didn’t do, or risk going to jail for a very long time?
People behave not by truth, but by what they think will bring them the best out come. If they believe false evidence they’ll claim guilt, even if false, to try to get a better outcome.
The author Matthew Dicks (Something Missing) has a blog which I unfortunately cannot link to here at work. If you search his name online, though, you will find it. In his blog, he writes about his experience being wrongly accused of something and how the events of his interrogations led him to almost confess, despite knowing full well that he was innocent.
Yes, it is anecdote and not data, but very interesting reading.
I refused to tell him who owned some pot that was in a communal area, so he took back the ticket he gave me for $250 that I got because he walked me into the park to discard the glass bottle!
I was infuriated, and I had more than enough money in my wallet to pay the ticket, but could not as there were ‘unspecified charges’ that disappeared the next day. I was all self-righteous for the first fifteen hours, but it was cold, smelly, and disgusting. So- yeah, I suck… :dubious:
The only bright side is that by pleading no contest to an ‘infraction’ they waived the fine for time served, so I didn’t have to pay the ticket. And it was interesting.