From the back of the head ......

Along, I suspect, with most of humanity, I have this little voice that lives in the back of my head and mutters subversive ideas at me in particularly inopportune times.

Today, I saw a news story about a gentleman who robbed three shops while walking from the gates of the "correctional facility" (that was supposed to have been his home for ten years, rather than seven months) and his parole officer's appointment. Last week, there was a story about the increasing percentage of prison cells being filled by people convicted of non-violent, essentially minor crimes which fall into the fringes of offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences.

So why is it that you are more likely to get early release for repeated drunk driving than for using your office computer to flirt with a co-worker (a sexual offense in many states, which, if reported by your employer, gets you a minimum of seven to ten years)? Why are muggers more likely to get "suspension and time served" sentence than persons caught with more then one gram of pot and less than 10 grams?

The little voice in the back of my head suggests the following:

With continuing overcrowding in prisons, which do you think the people who run these places would rather have? Violent offenders or non-violent? Which group is less likely to require additional staff be hired, trained, and paid?