Help Thy Neighbor and Go Straight to Prison

1) Why didn't he dispose of the shotgun shells? Surely someone told him that as a convicted felon he wasn't supposed to possess firearms or ammunition?

2) What led him to be suspected of the burglary?

3) He notes: "Then Young became a suspect in burglaries at storage facilities and vehicles in the area, and the police searched his home and found the forgotten shotgun shells as well as some stolen goods." He keeps mentioning the shotgun shells, but never returns to the issue of the stolen goods found in Young's house.

I agree with the sentiment of the article. Minimum sentence laws are wrong. Felon in possession laws are wrong. The disabilities applied to convicted felons after they've served their time are wrong. The U.S. imprisons too many people, especially in states like California where there is an toxic amalgam of scared suburbanites, police and prison workers unions, and for-profit prison companies that have created an unsupportable situation.

BUT: the fact that the author has to resort to presenting a story that's as much of a mixed bag as Daniel Young's should give you some pause. It should give you some perspective of the scale of the problem.

Kristof's exaggeration is unnecessary ("totally innocent people sent to jail just for helping their neighbor!"). I once had to watch a sentencing hearing for a class. The guy was a scumbag. Drug dealer (not the harmless neighbor kid who deals pot mind you), had two kids with two different women but didn't support either of them. One of the moms came to testify that he was trying to be more of a father to her kid recently and that imprisoning him would destroy that. The judge handed down I think a 15-20 year sentence based on the raft of prior enhancements (I think he had assaulted his other baby momma, did some burglaries, etc). He was not an innocent guy. At the same time, it was unnecessary to sentence him to 15-20 years. Our sentences are just too damn long, even if they are mostly applied to scumbags.

Given how harshly "citizens" with no records are often treated for the same thing, I have mixed feelings about this case. E.g. any "citizen" of Massachusetts doing this without having a state Firearms Identification Card would be going to jail for 1 year, no judicial discretion allowed. One of the first cases was a teen who borrowed the jacket his father had used for hunting, which had a leftover shotgun shell or two.

"He later found, mixed in among them, seven shotgun shells, and he put them aside so that his children wouldn’t find them. "

Ok so why did he "put them aside". Why is this taken as a fact anyway?

"“He was trying to help me out,” Mumpower told me. “My husband was a pack rat, and I was trying to clear things out.” "

Why does this matter at all? The fact that he was helping her and the fact that he held on to the shells has nothing to do with anything.

"Then Young became a suspect in burglaries at storage facilities and vehicles in the area, and the police searched his home and found the forgotten shotgun shells as well as some stolen goods. "

but then:

"It didn’t matter that the local authorities eventually dismissed the burglary charges. "

So we find out that he was enough of a suspect to be charged with burglary. (Not a big deal but not the same as "walking through his house they saw shells" or anything like that. Apparently even though he had committed no crimes since 1996 there were circumstances that made him a suspect in a burglary.

"So the federal government, at a time when it is cutting education spending, is preparing to spend $415,000 over the next 15 years to imprison a man for innocently possessing seven shotgun shells while trying to help a widow in the neighborhood. "

What does education spending being cut have to do with anything? What does the amount they are going to spend have to do with anything? What does the fact that he was "innocently possessing" have to do with anything? I didn't know that that mattered and of course where is the proof that he was "innocently possessing" or is that just a conclusion that Kristof came to?

" With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has almost one-quarter of the world’s prisoners. "

Why does this matter at all? So other countries don't lock up as many people. Who cares about a comparison like this other than to try to get people all emotional about this case (clearly the point quite obviously "ah the injustice of it all").

"Almost everyone seems to acknowledge that locking up vast numbers of nonviolent offenders is a waste of money. California devotes $179,400 to keep a juvenile in detention for a year, and spends less than $10,000 per student in its schools. "

Who are the "everyone" and why does it matter comparing prison spending to education? They are two different things. People get locked up in prison when they break laws. Stick to the argument of the law part don't say "we could feed 10000 hungry children if we didn't lock this guy up".

"Granted, mass incarceration may have been one factor in reduced crime in the last couple of decades; there’s mixed evidence."

The NYT "to be sure" phrase. I'm surprised there is only one of these in the opinion.

" One careful study of 35,000 young offenders by Anna Aizer and Joseph J. Doyle Jr. reached the startling conclusion that jailing juveniles leads them to be more likely to commit crimes as adults. "

"One study" - speaks for itself. So what. One study.

Etc. Etc.

Sure it's an opinion piece. I know. Just pull at the heart strings with a compelling story and we will all fall for it.