Stranger than fiction

So, picture this: You're down on your luck. You're just trying to make it by.

You're homeless.

You go with your bicycle, with your backpack, to the local food bank. You're on your way home and you are stopped by the police. You're searched.

That powdered milk you got from the food bank tests positive for cocaine. You get arrested and are thrown in jail.

You spend 2 months in jail.

The conditions in jail are so horrible that come your court date you plead guilty to possession with intent to distribute just to get moved out of that jail.

You're sentenced to 15 years.

15 years!

Nevermind, that you're innocent. Nevermind, that we're talking about powdered milk here.

You may think this story sounds too far-fetched to be real. But, I assure you, it's not.

This is the world we live in.

When I first heard about this story I just shook my head. What is this world coming to?

But, then I couldn't shake it.

Wait, what?

1)How can it happen that powdered milk test positive for cocaine?

2)Didn't the guy tell the officer he had just been to the food bank?

Weren't there other groceries in his bag?

I am imagining a couple of cans of beans, some tea, some soup, bread, oh, and this Ziplock bag of cocaine?

3)Where was the public defender? Who was the public defender?

4)Why did it take over 2 months to get the lab results back?

5)How many times has this happened before? Has this happened to this man before? (Especially considering he is particularly vulnerable due to both homelessness and mental illness).

Here are some staggering quotes from the article:

"Despite growing awareness that the tests have a high error rate – some studies have found that they result in false positives a fifth or even a third of the time – many police departments continue to rely on them."

Why would we even consider continuing to use something so faulty and flawed?

"The National Registry of Exonerations has found that 66 per cent of people who were exonerated after being convicted of drug crimes ended up in prison in the first place because they entered a guilty plea."

This begs the question of why people would rather plead guilty than fight for their innocence.

"Similarly, the 2016 New York Times-ProPublica investigation found that more than half of the people charged with drug crimes on the basis of a faulty field test pleaded guilty at the first opportunity."

Again, why? What is happening here? Why would you plead guilty to something you didn't do?

"He told the judge that he got the milk from a food pantry. He said that he entered a guilty plea only so that he could stop languishing in the Oklahoma County Jail, which has been plagued with issues ranging from overcrowding to chronic mould and an unusually high suicide rate for decades."

I read in another article about this story that the issues about this jail are known, and have been known for some time. If that is the case, why hasn't anything been done? How bad are conditions there that people would rather plead guilty than spend another night there?

And, I know that some will read the news story and blame the victim. It's a convenient way for people to dismiss the problem and it absolves them from having to do anything.

What can we do to protect and help the most marginalized members of society?

How can we help?

Can we remember the human beneath whatever problem we think we see?

Where is our humanity?

-Akiroq

Gambar oleh zwei chen dari Pixabay