The Indianapolis Star is reporting that 271 people were arrested at Little 500 this weekend. As the Star reports, most of those individuals can avoid prosecution by paying $425 and doing some community service and taking an alcohol classes.
Who do you think is going to get most of the the $425 per person diversion fee, an amount which totals $127,461? If your guess is the Monroe County Prosecutor's Office, you'd be correct. From what I learned, at least 1/3 of the budget of prosecutors' offices in the large state university towns - think Monroe County (IU), Delaware County (Ball State), Tippecanoe County (Purdue) and Vigo County (Indiana State) - is funded by college students paying diversion fees to avoid being prosecuted for alcohol offenses.
Moving to a more reasonable law on alchol consumption, e.g. changing the drinking age from 21 to 18, would result in prosecutors' office no longer being able to fleece the parents of college students to fund their budget. Like with civil forfeiture, these diversionary programs too often become all about the money that law enforcement can net from the program, not what is in the best interests of society.
11 comments:
Paul, your post is good sense itself.
Thanks, Nick.
$425 for underage drinking ? This is nuts. Government has necome an economic entity in and of itself - no longer an impartial and fair enforcer of the law, but a beast that consumes all it sees.
If you don't understand why Excise in Monroe County is cracking down on under-age drinking, then you have been asleep for a year.
Interesting, though. You are attempting to run as a county judicial candidate against the slate, but what happens, assuming you are elected, if you come across a case in your court that has a law violation that you dont agree with? I was tempted to give you my vote until this thread..and I'm sure that you just dropped another bomb on your candidacy that the local GOP will gleefully use against you. Bad move.
SW Lane can always be counted on to deliver the Third Reich's official position.
Cato can always be counted on for the unimaginative, ad homineum barbs against individuals and institutions (yawn/fart).
Back to you, Mr. Ogden. You are seriously imperiling your candidacy with partial and subjective comments about the judicial system. I thought you were more intelligent than giving your opposition campaign fodder?
Learn to spell, rube. As usual, you wade into a pool far too deep for you.
At least try to make yourself worth the instant of cerebral cycles it takes to swat you.
Your pathetic attack on Ogden is so laughable and without purchase that you might as well have accused him of hurting his campaign by stealing Twinkies out of a Martian spacecraft at a Wal-Mart parking lot.
ectiong mentotIf you consider a reasonable question an attack, Cato, then you definitely need to refill your meds. Begone, loathsome speck, this is a grown-up forum.
dnlati struitOr are you applying for a bailiff position in the Ogden court and feel the need to protect him?
And you call me pathetic..How sad.
I support the Bloomington Prosecutor Office's law in reducing the drinking age from 21 to 18. However, I'm upset that parents in this community do not support this act. The national or the state government should look into this.
wites and kapetan
There is definitely so much that they can get from this money here. It will fund the office so much here. The work arrests have paid off here. Silk Sheets
Post a Comment