A spark, weak, but a spark none the less.

Was out and about today pretending to be a professional delivery driver for work. Upon returning to the Shop to call it a day, I was confronted by something, well, odd is the best word to say at this time in our world.

There was a young man, twenty somethingish, standing out front, with a sandwich board stating, "I was convicted of shoplifting".

From my understanding, this guy was caught lifting something that valued only $2.50 and had his kid with him when he did it. When confronted, he took off running, leaving the kid behind. NOW, the fact that he is getting off this lightly, says something about the compassion of the judge/magistrate in the area. (yes, we have magistrates here, not a bad deal if they are decent people) His sentence, 7 full 8hour days, standing if front of the place of error, no jail time.(unless he defaults)

I can see two extremely positive points here. 1) He isn't going to do it again. Far too much humiliation. Especially when you consider how small this town really is. and 2) A lot less likely that others will attempt it at that location either(or other location in the immediate area)

Some liberals would call this cruel and unusual punishment. I see a compassionate person behind the sentence. This man could have been removed from his family and kids to serve a term in jail.(and some would say should have been since there was a kid involved and he left them behind to save his own skin.) In some ways, the sentence fits the crime perfectly. This goes back to one of my points I sometimes make about better ways of dealing with crime. That whole "cruel and unusual punishment" clause has been taken way out of context.

Talking to some of the employees in the shop, they agree that they would rather do the the jail time. Hence, reinforcing why I think locking people up does not one ounce of good. In many cases only exacerbates the issue. And takes money from the law abiding that could be used in much better ways.

It's a spark of hope to me that there are like minded individuals around here with enough clout to make positive changes. Maybe like minded people are more common than I originally thought.