You're arresting me for what??

The New York Times magazine has a great story about how the bail system discriminates against poor people. You should go read it if you are under the illusion that the justice system gives a fair deal to people who don't have money. There are many ways that it is expensive to be poor, but in this case we see people offered the choice between having their life fall apart while they sit helpless in jail, or having their life messed up by the black mark of a criminal record - all for the want of the temporary pledge of an asset.

But that's not what caught my eye. At the end they mention that a potential problem with bail reform is that it would clog up the courts, because people would actually be able to fight the charges. One of their interviewees thinks that would be a good thing, because:

You want pressure on the system. You want everyone involved to be reconsidering. Because of how much it could clog the system, you might have people on high telling cops to stop picking people up for an open-container violation, because ‘I don’t want to deal with it in my courtroom.’

The main character in the story demonstrates how badly needed that pressure is. Before he runs into problems raising bail, he has already been arrested and taken away to spend a night in the cells. It's not for jaywalking, or littering, or offensive language, or any of a host of minor infractions that might at least make sense under a "broken windows" regime.

I said, ‘Officer, what am I getting locked up for?’ He says, ‘Drug paraphernalia.’ I says, ‘Drug paraphernalia?’ He opens up his hand and shows me the straw.

...

The documentation submitted by the arresting officer explained that his training and experience told him that plastic straws are ‘‘a commonly used method of packaging heroin residue.’’

That's right. He got arrested because he had a soda in one hand, and a straw in the other. Outside the store where he had bought them both. Why? Drugs. I am reasonably well off, and I would be able to post bail on such a stupid charge. But I would already have been livid at that point - how can you arrest someone for holding a drinking straw?  Is there anyone in New York who could not be arrested at least a few times a year for that? You could stand outside practically any fast-food restaurant and coffee shop in the city and put people away as they came out.

All the way up the chain, everyone involved in this case needs to sit down, take a deep breath, and realize just how bizarre a world they have created. The arresting officer, his supervisors, the police chief, the district attorney and his staff, the judge; and then all the politicians who write the laws that make this possible. At each step, somebody looked at that case and failed to throw it out as a ridiculous travesty.

Tyrone Tomlin got locked up for a few weeks with violent criminals, and beaten up in the process. He lost wages for that time, and could easily have lost his job. That's a terrible failing of the system and it needs reform. But he should never have been arrested in the first place, and that's a failing of a war on drugs - an ever-increasing excuse to wreck people's lives for no good reason.

Stories like this make me angry, because it is so easy to imagine my own frustration at the rank stupidity of a system that suddenly has such awful power over me and such little sense of proportion or fairness. Whenever you hear a politician blithering about being "tough on crime" and trying to do away with due process because a guilty person has slipped through the net, remember that these measures are there to stop innocent people having their lives ruined.