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Other of the horrors here are the discrepancies in arrests, prosecutions, charges and imprisonment -- directed at minority urban dwellers who are twice as likely to lose out on all of the above. And the concurrent effect is that many an innocent person is induced to 'plea bargain' when not guilty simply to avoid a life destroying sentence. This happened to one of my students who took 3 years rather than the mandatory 15 minimum that he would otherwise have been facing.
And, of course, once one has that record, one finds it most difficult to get jobs. We took on a doorman for our building who up front indicated that he had served two years for aggravated assault. He had been laid off from a factory job with its closing, got into a bar brawl which led to his charges, had an excellent report from his parole officer, but was dumped by our co-op as soon as it read his application form -- he had been hired on an emergency basis to replace a guy with a drug record.
And so it goes in Amerika. Ed
Jon Aeolians wrote:
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The impact of criminal records after a person had served the court's sentence has a bigger weight than in decades past. Years ago, the general present reputation of the person carried more of a weight. In many cases, the record did not carry as much of a weight nor was it was it checked all that often as it is today. Expungement ("sealing") of certain records after serving of sentence and several years of law abiding behavior was a help.
-- "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy) -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
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