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….|n |n n| n|ADVENTURE TIME!!
I did not just spend 5 minutes making this.Well, it looked awesome on Facebook. I give up! Argh, Y U NO WORK ON TUMBLR?!
Money quote:
Grand larceny alone is enough to warrant a much longer prison sentence than just six months. And when you add the other two charges into the mix, sentencing could easily top 15 or 20 years. But because these agents worked for the government, they apparently are not subject to the same treatment as the rest of the general public.
2 thoughts:
1. In an ideal world, no one would be sent to jail for 15-20 years for any crime except for the most heinous of transgressions. Recall that Anders Brevik will only serve 21 years for killing and/or injuring over 200 Norwegians. Stealing $40,000 could ruin someone’s life financially, but if punishments reflect the seriousness of the crime, then there is no realm of moral calculus in which stealing $40,000 flirts near the seriousness of mass murder. Grand Larceny is also a felony, meaning that these employees would be condemned to a lifetime of punishment even if they served no time in prison at all, including legal discrimination in the workplace, applications for public assistance, voting rights, gun ownership, not to mention virtually guaranteed increased penalties for future criminal proceedings.
2. With all this being said, the fact remains that we do have an intolerably draconian criminal justice system, and within that context, stories like this are the reason why a resilient narrative of corruption and incompetence exists about public servants. Just like police officers and prosecutors who are given a pass for criminal conduct committed in the execution of their official duties, this type of selective enforcement reduces respect for public sector employees by giving the public the impression that public sector employees are not held accountable when they act incompetently or unlawfully. The end result is that competent, ethical public sector employees suffer for the indiscretions of their incompetent or criminal peers, because they are made to bear the disapprobation of the public every time a story like this breathes new life into the narrative of public sector corruption and incompetence. That’s why holding public employees accountable for wrong-doing (particularly those who have lawful power to affect your personal liberty via intimate contact or physical intervention), is so important to a functional, professional public sector. If you believe in civic institutions, and deign to have pride in them, you can’t tolerate this sort of behavior, even for a moment.
Good gods, yes.
