Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Last night I had a situation that I found to be quite disappointing. Just after seven o’clock in the evening, I thought I would have dinner at a restaurant on the other side of town and drove over there to dine out. Along the way, I needed to merge onto a major interstate freeway in the metro area having four lanes and busy traffic. As I drove along in the outside lane, it was after dark at the time, I saw a man walking along the hard shoulder of the roadway. I worried that a drunk might veer off the travelled portion and hit him so I pulled over to offer him a ride. Thus began a conversation that really shows how we can often allow people to be put at risk because the county does not want to offer them a modicum of accommodation.
After I picked him up, the gentleman walking around the roadway told me that he had just been released from the county jail after serving time for driving while license suspended. He did not have someone to pick him up from jail so he had no other option but to walk back home. He lived twenty five miles from the jail. The only way he could get home, since he had no money with him, was to walk along a busy interstate freeway.
We previously wrote about the virtual debt peonage and endless circle of jail and further increases of fines with suspended drivers in an article HERE.
It would have taken him until after six in the morning to walk that far. So rather than drive him to the next exit to find another ride I just drove him home.
He was 57 years old, unemployed and had no family available to drive him. He had no other choice than to walk. I asked him if the jail offered him a bus ticket or some other accommodation to allow him to return home after release. He said the jail used to give bus tickets to people in his situation but stopped doing that several years ago.
We had a good visit with each other, but the entire time we were together I could not help but wonder why the county has a system as such that a person of little means is forced to walk twenty five miles home because no effort was made to arrange for his journey. The risk this man faced from being hit by a drunk driver, stopped by the state patrol for being a pedestrian on a limited access freeway, or simply collapsing from exhaustion is certainly not something that we should accept nor something a person released from custody should endure.
I recognize that the sheriff’s office is not a taxi service and has no obligation to provide transport for released inmates after their term has expired, but couldn’t the county at least take a few more steps to ensure that someone can either pick up the inmate or try to prevent a situation where a fifty seven year old does not have to walk twenty five miles to get home?
Is this too much to ask?
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
If he lived anywhere in the county, the county sheriff should drive him home. Along the way the sheriff can do some policing. If he lives outside the county then at least take him to the county line or to a bus station at the county line.
Dumping people happens in inner city hospitals too. Street people who are treated as inpatient or in the ER often get dumped on the street, some even yet still in their hospital gown. It’s shameful.
Paul, That dose of reality isn’t helping anyone and may hurt others in the process.
I am asking you to look at the wider, pragmatic social implications of your policy. Darren laid out some possible consequences to this man and to others. I laid out further consequences of recidivism due to receiving no help to get work, housing or even a way home after doing one’s sentence at prison. Do you want these types of consequences or do you want something that will work for this person and the rest of our society?
We need to decide what type of society we want.
Jill -I told you what I would do and why. However I also said why I thought they had stopped giving them transportation home. It is clear the jail does not feel compelled to offer transportation home.
Darren did what he did because of who he is. We are different people. We also have different backgrounds.
Jane,
That’s so sad! A friend’s salesman father broke down in winter. He was walking towards a distant farmhouse when he apparently stopped to rest. He didn’t make it.
Very interesting article!
You’re a good man, Darren!
My kindly traveling salesman Uncle picked up a man and was murdered in a cornfield with the ax from the trunk of his car. The man was given a life sentence and deported to Germany. He had a long history of crime & incarceration. My Uncle remembered his WWII Army days when hitchhiking was only way home & had often times given people rides. It’s a crap shoot.
This issue reminded me of one of my favorite small movies, First Time Felon.
A young man was found guilty of a felony for selling heroine. He went to boot camp and straightened out. But the challenges he’d made for himself were extremely difficult to overcome. You really root for the main character.
Great movie, especially to see with a teenager.
Wow. There is so much I want to say and talk about on this thread. I will get to that later, after some thought.
Darren, you are both to be commended, and possibly criticized if you have a wife and family at home. You took a risk that is insane in my town, but none-the-less I do it from time to time anyway. Just have to do it. Last time was last winter in a part of town where Obama would be called white-boy I pulled over and stopped my truck to get out and help a guy, with family in his car, stuck in the snow rut between an alley and the street. My better half said I was crazy (she was in the truck with me at the time) and worried I’d be assaulted, and worse that I’d kill someone in that process…which is always possible, … e.g, some fool try to take my truck…with her in it?! I am always armed and have never missed when confronted…enough said about that. I saw a guy, a guy not the same hue as me, with family, stuck in a place he’d likely not wish to stay in…so I had to help, no matter what. No. Matter. What.
Sometimes you just do what you have to do. Sometimes you might die doing it. If you fear that, don’t go outside at night in the big city.
Darren, I do hope you don’t pick up too many hikers on freeway shoulders…but if you do, you have more guts than me…I only do it now and then….when I am an idiot. 🙂
And good for you for intervening when that woman was hurting a child.
I knew a pregnant woman who fell and was injured. She screamed for help but no one came. Had to drag herself to a phone. Later she asked the workmen next door why they ignored her. They said they thought it was a domestic dispute and hadn’t wanted to get involved.
Lee,
You’re right. I feel like I can’t pick up hitch hikers because it’s dangerous for a woman (usually with a child) to let a strange man into her car.
I have pulled over for broken down families and let them use my phone. Or given directions. But you do bring up a valid safety issue.
I’m so glad Darren was in a position to help. In some parts of the country, especially rural and agricultural areas, it’s still common for everyone to pick up hitch hikers.
leej, This is a silly tit for tat. We do not know for certain this man had AODA issues. The odds are high he does. Just agree to disagree w/ Paul and maybe Darren will shed some light on it. Otherwise it’s just wasted energy.
leejcaroll – you are correct. I was never in jail for alcohol or drugs either. However, the treatment is valid.
Neither Paul, but that does not automatically make me not an addict or alcoholic.
Jill, Govt. does not care. People care.
leej, If you understand govt. you would realize they don’t think in terms of helping people, their job in this case is incarcerating and releasing prisoners. They do their job, and NOTHING MORE. The only way someone @ the jail would call the Salvation Army would be because they firstly, care, and secondly, know about that valuable resource of the Salvation Army. It would happen on a very sporadic basis, a good person who did it out of the kindness of their heart. leej, there ain’t a lotta kindness of the heart in govt. workers. That’s why private charity, like the Salvation Army, are so much more effective. They CARE.
I echo what Justice Holmes said. I’m really glad you did this Darren and that you wrote about it.
I also agree with LJC, that not everyone is able to do this kind of thing safely. This leads me to Paul’s feeling that the inmate should suffer some more after serving his sentence. This inmate did the time, justice was served. I think Darren brings up a good point about helping the inmate after he served his time.
After doing the time, how do we best serve our own society as a whole? In the private prison system it is a good thing to have recidivism because its a profit center. Even public prisons don’t want to spend money on stopping recidivism because we have an angry public enraged that prisoners are getting something that they, as working members of society, may not be receiving.
As one prison educator stated, when people start to get jealous and enraged that prisoners are receiving something, say free GED classes, that they are not receiving, perhaps it is time to rethink the whole society. Perhaps, for example, everyone should have access to free GED courses and tests.
We need to be pragmatists. Do we want good results or do we want to extract that last ounce of pain and suffering from another person? Americans seem to have lost the idea of pragmatism. That’s a shame, because when something works, everyone benefits.
Dumping people off after their prison sentence is served does not work. Right wing people used to argue pragmatism. They were often willing to pay for something that works. I don’t see that willingness as often as I used to. However, I still do see it. But it seems lost in so much bitterness and anger.
I think many people in our society are rightfully angry, both left wing and right wing. We need to build a better, more pragmatic system of justice in our society. We need to build a society based on justice. Until we do, this society will continue to be full of pain, misery and injustice towards most. I don’t want that society and I’m fairly certain not that many other people do. For me, pragmatic programs should appeal to both the left and the right and make for effective response to many issues we face today.
Jill – don’t see it as punishment. See it as a dose of reality.
YOud think someone at the jail wpould have thght of the salvation army or other group that does this kind of work. To just tpss this man out was not only inhumane but a lack of judgment onn their part.
Paul I have no personal safety net and would have no one to come get me and I am neither an addict or an alcoholic.There are many reasons people may not have a support network. You are lucky if you have not had to deal with that kind of a situation. I would think there are many reasons for suspended license other then DUI.
jeejcaroll – when was the last time you got your license suspended and landed in jail?
While the government can’t do everything…..nor should it, they should at least make some effort to place released prisoners and not just dump them out on the street. Several reasons. First if the person IS a repeat offender, just throwing them back into the pond with no assistance is going to assure yet another repeat. Second: If the person is just temporarily “down on his luck” with some minor infraction, there is even more need for support to help the guy/gal get back on their feet instead of sinking further. Some people are not just criminals but in need of mental health support. It is more than cruel to just dump these ill people into the streets.
I generously support the Salvation Army for the reasons that Nick outlined as well as the fact that among charities, they spend more of their funds on the actual charitable function and not on top heavy administration with obscene offices.
Our local Soroptimist club, to which I used to belong, also has a fabulous program for abused women and children. Setting up anonymous apartments, housing and providing supplies, clothing, toiletries, toys, food to the fleeing spouses and children to help them be protected and move on while in the legal process of separating. They also have been known to assist men who are in a similar position of being the abused spouse. I donate to them as well.
There is a place for charity in this world and organization who provide good services and who are not just out to scam money should be supported.
Darren,
You demonstrated a humility that is not commonly found these days. We don’t know the circumstances that leave these people in their unfortunate condition but only the most callous among us would not feel a bit curious to see what we could do to help.
For all of us that decry government bureaucracy, this is the sort of story that should have us brainstorming a list of the various private means to care for those in need, including steps that would reduce future occurrences.