In Wisconsin (as in most states) drinking underage is a “status offense”. There are fines, drivers license suspensions, and alcohol classes that offenders may (or may not) have to attend.
But Prison is not one of the consequences.
I bring this up because I had a can of Mikes Harder Mango Punch tonight (surprisingly refreshing. Much better than I had expected! :)). On the can there is a statement, right above and to the right of Mikes fist, that says “Mikes is hard. So is prison. Don’t drink until you’re 21.”
Are they suggesting underage drinkers are going to prison? Or are they talking about underage drinking/driving and killing someone? As it stands it sounds kind of absurd.
But that’s extreme and absurd. I could sit all week listing things that are illegal that people don’t go to prison for (speeding, parking violations, spitting in public, etc.).
No way are they going to convince any underager with that ridiculous message.
Whoever wrote that was just trying to be clever and conflating the concept of being arrested with prison. If you’re arrested for UAD its entirely possible you will be temporarily detained in a jail holding cell. There is often a common misconception that the two are the same, but they are not. One needs to be convicted of a crime and appropriately sentenced to go to prison. Even if you are sentence to a period of incarceration you may be sent to a jail and not a prison (the difference usually being the amount of time being served: if you are sentenced to 48 hours you must definitely are not going to serve it in a prison). The person who wrote this is obviously not aware or not concerned with such distinctions : They are not writing a legal notice , just trying to scare minors into not drinking.
Well, maybe the advertisers just wanted to keep the jingle to the length of a jingle. After all, one can hardly be expected to fit “Mike’s is hard, meaning it contains alcohol, so it is not a soft drink, meaning a drink without alcohol, and if you do decide to operate a motor vehicle on the road immediately after consuming Mike’s, the afore-mentioned alcoholic beverage, you may be involved in a fatal collision with another motor vehicle, and since you had quite recently imbibed an intoxicating beverage (do we really have to remind you again that we are referring to Mike’s?) you likely will be found criminally culpable for the death or deaths of other human beings, which will prompt a court of law to incarcerate you” on a can and still have it legible, especially if you’ve been swilling the stuff.
People often confuse prison (long term) with jail (short term)
You may not go to prison for underage drinking, but you may just find yourself in a holding cell with harden criminals until your father decides you learned your lesson and posts bail.
After working in a bail bonds office and seeing some of these type, I would not even want to be in a holding cell for any length of time.
Easy, pkbites… I went to jail over parking tickets (jail, not prison… but I’m still pissed about it). And, FWIW, I was more heavily punished than a guy who was arrested for doing 70 mph in a 30, drunk (I think it was a .15ish that he blew) at 1030 on a Sunday morning. He got a $700 fine (not his first offense, BTW); I got $6800 in fines (on top of the alleged parking violations, which the judge mostly dismissed after they were proven to be inaccurate - like “no parking 8am-10am” being written at 3am).
I’m so f’n glad to have left Dirty Jersey. What an awful state.
