Thursday, July 26, 2007

What the Hell is Wrong with Americans?!

In today’s Guardian, there was a story about a 20-year-old man in Florida that was sentenced to an additional 60 days in jail for masturbating in his jail cell. There was a court case, lawyers, jury and everything. The jury found that because it’s funded by the government, a jail cell is a “limited-access public space”, and since it’s illegal to masturbate in public, it’s, by extension, illegal to masturbate in one’s jail cell.

First of all, who cares? The guy was in jail. Where else is he going to masturbate? It’s not like he go home and masturbate like everyone else. He’s kinda stuck there for a while. I don’t care if guys in jail masturbate all day long. What else do they have to do?

Secondly, why are we wasting our money on prosecuting guys that masturbate in jail? If he had been out on a park bench, I could understand the consternation, but this guy was alone in a jail cell. If society is so concerned with the fragile sensibilities of jail guards, a) maybe we should find jail guards that aren’t quite so sensitive, or b) maybe they should put doors on the jail cells instead of enclosing them in glass. Regardless of the course of action they choose, I don’t think they should be wasting tax payer money prosecuting crimes that weren’t really crimes in the first place. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I could’ve sworn that there were still real crimes being committed that we haven’t quite stopped yet. This is just an idea, but maybe we should start using resources to fight real crime instead of worrying about a guy just trying to get to know himself a little better.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or is the world f\in crazy and is getting closer to outright creaton each day pass