Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Saturday, August 24. 2024

Anybody been to jail, or have a friend who had?


I have a long-time friendly acquaintance who is in jail for quite a while. Rightly so, and he doesn't mind admitting it. Not a career criminal, but a real one-time white-collar crime. Bad idea, terrible judgement.


I do my best to avoid committing crime, or moral lapses of all sorts, but I did spend one night in jail decades ago. For hitchhiking on the Taconic Parkway to see a girlfriend. Figures, right? The police thought my roll-up tobacco might be marijuana, but it was not. Lucky me, because at that age it might have been.


Career crims might be comfortable with it, but it is a daunting experience for an otherwise decent citizen. People who do not monitor themselves well can do foolish things. I do not term them "bad decisions" because they do not seem like considered decisions.


Any readers been in jail, or have a friend who did?








Posted by Bird Dog at 14:37 | Comments (18) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I’ve done 8 Kairos weekends in Tn/Tx. This is a nondenominational Christian outreach program patterned after the Cursillo movement. We give talks, worship sing laugh and dance. Many of the men have lost all hope as families often cut off relationships. I’m not sure how I would do in prison…probably not too well.
#1 Mark on 2024-08-24 14:49 (Reply)
Love the Taconic Pkwy, at the least the part I'm familiar with, I-90 down to i-84. It is out of my way but I was able to avoid Connecticut, entirely and that's worth something.

As to jail? I would die from exposure to television. HATE TV with abandon. Turned it off when the United States murdered some religious sect in the Waco, Texas area. Never missed it.
#2 Tallywhagger on 2024-08-24 16:03 (Reply)
I was jailed on a completely false charge for 6 days in Utah County, Utah. A police officer who had a grudge against me ordered a subordinate officer to take me to jail on felony charge for a Facebook post. He claimed that the Facebook post was an attempt by me to communicate with my wife, who during a manic episode, had obtained a false stay away injunction against me.

It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. It had the positive effect of creating greater empathy for the imprisoned, but it also had a devastating effect of hurting my mental health for a season and creating an understanding of the level of corruption in our Utah Injustice system. I was not the only one there on false charges.

No charges were ever actually filed against me, and the police officers have not been disciplined yet. I am on the ballot for Governor of Utah this year, partially to bring attention to how insane this system is.
#3 Tom Tomeny (Link) on 2024-08-24 16:50 (Reply)
The hassle, the detainment, roughing you up, the arrest, the overnight or weekend in jail is the punishment. They can drop the charges or it get thrown out of court but they still got to punish you.
#3.1 OneGuy on 2024-08-24 21:10 (Reply)
My dog wallet got a month in the Marin County Jail. I assumed it was for pot. She lost a lot of her clients, but I stuck with her. She was really screwed up by it, even without losing her clients. And I gotta figure Marin County can't be as bad as some. In South Carolina, or beginner spent a night in the local jail for a DUI. No AC, which in the summer in South Carolina is CRUEL. I leave a lot from his experience. One of which is the first person you call is a bail bondsman. No one else can do anything for you, so just skip the middleman and go straight to the bail bondsman.
#4 Lee Also on 2024-08-24 22:15 (Reply)
"Dog walker," not "dog wallet."
"Our neighbor," not "our beginner."
"I learned a lot," not "I leave a lot."
#4.1 Lee Also on 2024-08-24 22:19 (Reply)
For driving without a license, in the late '60s I spent a weekend in Oregon's Lane County Jail. Although I remember they had good chili (meals being a big highlight of the daily incarceration experience), my stay was not long enough to give tips on how to get through it. However, there are books addressing that subject. For example:
https://www.amazon.com/How-survive-prison-prisoners-supporters/dp/154491377X
#4.2 Tim (Link) on 2024-08-25 10:20 (Reply)
My brother in law spent 30 days in the Lane County jail. His ex put him in jail numerous times for not paying child support. Ironically he did pay it the country screwed up the records and her complaint had more sway in court than the counties inability to give the correct answer in court. No apology, no restitution, no justice.
#4.2.1 OneGuy on 2024-08-27 00:58 (Reply)
Almost.

Kinda.

Late fifties, hitchhiking, Gainesville, FL to NYC, got a ride with a rather drunk driver in the Carolinas. Cop stopped him in Virginia.

Well past midnight, raining and blowing, police officer offered to let me sleep in a cell until morning but he'd have to lock the cell door. Thanked him politely, but no thanks.
#5 Jim (Link) on 2024-08-25 11:40 (Reply)
I once got into a band by being asked to sit in for a gig while their bass player was in jail. The next time he was in jail I was asked to be their regular bassist.
#6 Michael R. Kesti on 2024-08-25 12:41 (Reply)
In the summer of '69, Oakland police gave me a jaywalking ticket for walking through a red light at 3:00 a.m. Not a vehicle for blocks, except for the motorcycle cop.

The next year, while I was hitching at a freeway entrance, CP in San Jose stopped and ran my license. I got sent to jail for non-reply to that jaywalking ticket. The next day I was transported to Oakland, where I called friends to bail me out.

At the hearing the judge said I had to pay a fine - was it $25? I asked the judge if he realized that I had spent 40 hours in jail. Upon hearing that, the judge waived the fine.
#7 Gringo on 2024-08-25 14:11 (Reply)
My older brother started a 12 year stretch 1n 1958 for armed robbery in Strangeways Prison Manchester in the UK,according to my dad he came out a completely different man setting up a boat transport service which became quite successful even transporting Princess Annes yachts around the country.Not sure how he got around the security bit though.
#8 Marc (Link) on 2024-08-25 16:28 (Reply)
Charged by Army CID with assault, burglary, and communicating a threat when I broke down a soldier's barracks door and roughed him up after he slit my truck tires because I reported him for dealing. Stupid move...
I spent a day in jail, but after my battalion commander intervened, the charges were miraculously dropped.
Lucky...
#9 Monk on 2024-08-25 17:17 (Reply)
Spent 10 days in Shoshone County jail in N Idaho in the mid-80s. A long list of alcohol related charges got me there. I deserved it and was glad not to get a year state time in Boise.

I was 31. Everyone else was younger and a rackety punk except for two guys: a rich man's son who was alright when sober, an asshole when not; a middle-weight boxer who drank and fought anytime, anywhere - Good guy when sober and an excellent pal while locked up with 15 to 20 jerkball twenty somethings.

I haven't had a drink in 38 years. Jail and the thought of penitentiary saved my life. Think the boxer and rich kid never learned and can only suspect what happened next for them.

I took in a lot of crosswords and reading.
#10 Larry on 2024-08-25 18:53 (Reply)
Spent one night in Columbus MS. Jail. Camped in an Old Building
with only three walls. swept the floor and cleaned the place up.
Was rousted and arrested for trespassing. Actually it was my Hippe looks.
Not a bad stay. My room mate was in for murder. I was 17 teen and knew to be quiet.
Out the next day courtesy of my older brother.
No need to repeat that although I was threatened to be thrown into the goal with my cook in Africa. 100 USD took care of that.
God Bless, Capt John
#11 Capt John on 2024-08-26 06:21 (Reply)
Got arrested in SW Idaho in the early 80's. Had some prohibited plants in my garden. Thankfully the deputies didn't shoot my dogs, but it was touch and go.

Had some time to reflect on my life choices while handcuffed in the back seat of the cruiser. Spent two nights in an old county jail. Got bailed out of Monday. Nothing remarkable about that stay.

Got 5 years probation and thirty days on workout. Every other inmate in my group cell was doing time for alcohol related offenses. Everyone was reasonably polite and that stint went as well as could be expected.

The big lesson for me - I never wanted to be incarcerated again. 40 years later and I have never seen the inside of another jail. The loss of freedom was enough to convince me of the error of my ways.
#12 altered states on 2024-08-26 14:09 (Reply)
In the mid 50's a kinda rough guy, a friend of my fathers, was jailed in NC. He was an alcoholic and a fighter. He always got in a fight when he drank and he never lost a fight. But this on time his opponent didn't like getting a whipping and pulled out a knife. My dad's friend told him to drop the knife or he would stick it up his ass. The other guy laughed and stepped in to stab him and ended up with a knife up his ass and bled to death in the bar. My dad's friend was convicted of murder and executed. Took a few year to happen but they did it. He would call my dad regularly while in jail. He was not to bad when sober.
#13 OneGuy on 2024-08-27 01:06 (Reply)
My pop was put in prison in a Midwestern USA state for not paying income tax. He decided at some point that he was not going to be a part of what he thought was a corrupt political system.

An interesting side note is that he had a fairly strong defense as it pertained to the IRS and the sixteenth amendment, so the state he lived in ended up convicting him under state statutes.

He ended up going to prison at an older age. Spent a bit over a year in prison.

He was a strong man.
#14 sally on 2024-09-01 21:30 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.