On the news today I heard of a 60-some-year-old laid off autoworker robbing a bank so he could get caught and go to prison. His motive: fear of becoming homeless. He used a handgun (unloaded I presume) and demanded money from a teller. After making it out the front door with approximately one grand, he pretended to faint. No car chases, no gunfire exchanges, just a simple plan to get three hots and a cot. In the courtroom, the county prosecutor recommended they be lenient on the guy and help him find a job. The judge seemed to agree.I'm not so sure this is the right thing to do. What kind of message are we sending to the rest of society?
In my annual training session today on "Leadership: Ethics & Attitudes," we covered the Doctrine of Relative Filth. In case you haven't heard of it before, it's a way of rationalizing something even though you know it's wrong. To what degree do we accept a person's rationality? To what degree do we accept the laid off autoworker's motives? To what degree do we accept the prosecutor and judge's decisions?
Other people have done worse things, true, but what has that got to do with the criminal act itself? Do you know how many times I've heard an inmate tell me, I might be a murderer, but I'm not a thief? You see, in prison the inmates who steal are despised above all the rest. At least among their own. Us law abiding citizens know that stealing covers a multitude of sins. We call rape: stealing sex. We call murder: stealing a life. And now I call robbing a bank in order to have a place to live and eat: stealing the taxpayer’s money. How dare he! Let's at least make it worth his while! It beats living in a van down by the river. He’s paid his fare amount of taxes, now it’s time he enjoy the fruits of his labor. Or am I over rationalizing this whole thing?
23 comments:
Hope you find that leak. Loved the "van down by the river" line. Unforgettable Farley!
I enjoy hearing you include the details of my old stomping grounds. I worked four summers at the Ford Vinyl plant on Grosbeck near Hall (M-59). The correctional facility my brother used to teach in is near there. Many of my stories (tree swings, etc.) are set in a place that is visible from 23 Mile Rd.
You'll be in the swim in no time!
gosh if that isn't pandora's box I dont know what is...i saw some documentary once about inmates and some of them admitting to doing stupid things because otherwise they'd be homeless...but now they are doing real time. But at least they are 'home' right?
"home is where your heart is" ....
how suddenly sad is that?
Imagine if this guy had been uneducated or, say, Arabic, and pulled this stunt --do you suppose the judge and prosecutor would have been so lenient?
An old woman pulled this in North Carolina not too long ago. There are better social nets, surely. What if someone had died of fright?
Erik asked the question I wanted to ask. Aren't there better social nets? Apparently not. That happens here in Canada as well. It can get really cold sleeping in a van down by the river (or on a sidewalk). I don't believe a guy down on his luck should ever have go starve or go homeless, especially in the wealthiest countries in the world, but unfortunately they do.
I guess he figured if he was going to get caught right away, and give the money back, it really wasn't stealing.
Poor guy.
(Hurry up and get that pool fixed. I'm coming over for a swim.)
Josie
you're not over-thinking the matter at all ... we are a possessive society, where taking something that doesn't belong to you is the worst act one can perform.
Jim, Do we know "Patterns of ink"? Looks like he grew up near where we grew up on 23 Mile Rd near the Expressway. A small world!! I don't understand how a guy gives up like he did? Although he got 3 hots and a cot just like the news said. Now, let's put him to work, IF somebody will take him. --Bro, Ron
Desperate people do desperate things.... Sad he thought that was his only way out of his "problem" and only 60 years old!
Ever try to find a job when you are over 50? Nobody wants you, no matter what level of skill you have because you won't want the pay offered or they want a sweet young thing to look at who will work for six dollars an hour and if you do find work in this community it will be part time, no benefits and you have to find two or three to make ends meet.
60: two years away maybe 5 from collecting his minimum social security and no Medicare until two years after that.
Stealing the taxpayers money...nope the guy would have been getting some of the money the government stole from him over the years and in this state at least Fat John Engler cut whatever safety nets there were for this guy to the bone and left the state billions in debt when he left office and moved out of the state he destroyed and Bush has gone off with his faith based initiatives which line the pockets of them that run them and maybe provide a few overnight beds.
And what can this assembly line worker (if that's what he was) be re-trained to do in enough time for him to qualify for decent employment, that would allow him to pay his mortgage and food and most likely prescriptions?
Just in the city of Detroit, there are upwards of fifty thousand homeless people and a single man without family is at the bottom of the list for aid and shelter. And on top of that now with Detroit experiencing an eviction rate 130% above the national average with the suburbs not doing much better, more people are out there scrambling for housing. The wait for section 8 vouchers is 5 years in both city and suburbs.
Nope sorry folks to this man he had three options...suicide, which would not have made the paper, or armed robbery which did make a story that will soon be forgotten or he could have gone dumpster diving until he died, which option would you take?
JR, you should offer to ghost write his "book" and then go on Oprah and make a bajillion bucks!
Hard Luck Times. It happens to the best of people who are only trying to take care of family and loved ones.
I wouldn't say you overrationalized. I would say you had misdirected anger. Because you work in the prison system, you saw it as theft of taxpayers' money. I saw it as theft of that poor teller's peace of mind. Not one person commented about the poor teller. On a side note, I used to say that if I ever got close to being homeless I would commit a felony so I could live in a federal prison. My crime of choice? I would copy and sell movies. It's a felony and doesn't hurt anyone. Yeah, I'm silly.
My father spoke on behalf of my brother at his trial. Bro robbed big boy, gunman himself. I've talked to you about that after class, before, I think. My dad tried to influence the court that bro's life has been scarred by big poppi's absence in it since age two. Bro still got the worst sentence of all his little clique. We all support him, weather we want to or not.
I know, pretty strange stuff coming out of these graveyard shift bloggers tonight. Good post.
Keep writing well.
Visitor E,
I do remember our little discussion about your brother. I believe in giving people an extra chance, but I don't believe in favoritism. Erik had a valid point regarding this (what if?). And from a different perspective, so did The Walking Man. I guess my ambiguity has generated plenty of discussion. There are no easy solutions here. Thanks for the comments.
The guy had a leak in his liner.
Interesting. Over here it's the sex offenders, animal abusers and criminals against children (child abuse, child pronography, e.t.c...) who are the most despised.
Has this person ever been laid off before? Does he have a criminal history? Fear of the unknown will make someone irrational, but that isn't an excuse, maybe a reason for behavior. You'd think that if someone could reason out everything he did as far as committing the crime, he'd be able to reason out a way to find another job. If he's been through this before, then there isn't anything a person can say to defend himself.
I too may be a complete jerk, but at least I mean well most of the time. Such is the doctrine of my life.
Alas, I guess we have to look at it like this: he admitted why he did what he did AND it's cheaper to get job assistance than sent to the pokey for many years.
somewhere on my site, i think i write about stuff like that, you just have to look for posts that have asterisks and then you won't have to read about baseball or NASCAR.
oh well...
have a good 1.
I feel bad for the guy.
A couple of years ago, a guy shot a postman for the same reasons-- it was a national news story. The postman lived, but will be on a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. The postman's son was one of my wife's customers at her old job.
That is one sad story and there are no easy answers - no definitive black and white guidelines.
I had never heard of the "Doctrine of Relative Filth."
Fascinating.
Keep the Faith!!!
Indeed this is quite a subject. You've got an explosive source of material for writing. I have to endanger myself in order to get experience, so I have to be carefull not to get myself on the otherside of freedom's line. I know it's there, you know it's there and so did all those guys inside the red brick hotel, they knew it was there too. Thanks for the shout, jr.
I dunno. I think I'd rather be homeless than live in prison.
You should read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. It deals with similar issues, and the strange aversion to theft in particular among other crimes, as well as your framing of those other crimes as forms of theft, is present there too.
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