In Jacksonville, Florida, Tammy Crews, 46, has reportedly confessed to a particularly disturbing crime after she stole the donation jar with $600 set out in a restaurant for the family of 7-year-old Heydi Rivas-Villanueva who was recently shot to death. Crews stole the jar from Tapatio Restaurant but was later apprehended by the police.
The police put out a picture with the surveillance video of the woman snatching the jar, putting it in a bag, and then quickly leaving the restaurant.
After police circulated the picture, people identified her as Crews. She reportedly confessed to stealing the jar to pay for crack.
Given her addiction, how do you believe she should be sentenced?
Given her addiction, she should be sentenced exactly the same as anyone else.
Why in the world would addicts be allowed to break the law, or receive a lesser sentence? That effectively would amount to a sentencing enhancement for those who are not drug addicts.
Any program that helps addicts get sober is good for the community. However, the law is supposed to apply equally to everyone. Perhaps she can sober up in jail. However, there is a high rate of relapse for addicts.
Legalization of drugs is a difficult issue. On the one hand, does the government have the right to legislate what you do to your body? On the other hand, drug addicts prey on society to feed their addiction, and fuel the homeless epidemic, which is also a public health hazard. In addition, most recreational drugs are literally poison. How could it be legal to sell addictive poison to ingest?
Exactly. Sentenced like anyone else. Why would her self-inflicted disability be a mitigating factor? Why wouldn’t it be an aggravating factor?
This is “Particularly Disturbing”?
We have a traitor in the White House and THIS is particularly disturbing? Turley twists himself and the remnants of his soul to support the Putin Administration … I’m sure he can cook something up for this poor sorry soul.
Let’s stay local … Florida has a governor that took the fifth 50 times in a Medicare fraud case. That’s his right, but why in the name of Christ would anyone vote for someone that took the fifth even once?
We have a traitor in the White House and THIS is particularly disturbing?
No, we have mendacious partisan Democrat meme-pushers peddling the idea that we have a traitor in the White House. What’s disturbing is that 1/2 the public votes for a political party that’s basically a criminal organization whose most ardent supporters lie all the time and about everything.
A traitor in the White House? I think the many instances of Obama’s tenure when his actions were neerer to that description deserve discussion. Six (was it six) violent enemies released from Guantanamo for one American soldier (whose status as captured was dicey). Millions in cash to Iran. Who cares whose money it is, we had it and should have kept it! Lack of concern that our Ambassador and others were fighting for their lives while he flew to San Francisco to raise money (currently every time the current President flies on AFI folks talk about cost). AFI is the only mode of flying transportation all Presidents must use says Secret Service. Notice no one mentions that? Golfing while the world watched in horror an American’s head chopped off on live television. And the collossal Affordable Care Act that didn’t work on Day One. More lies to the American people than one can count. A President’s main duty is to protect the American people. President Trump has shown in close to two years how many things were of no help to the American people. Probably none or all together don’t rise to traitor, but he sure didn’t help millions get jobs, get off Food Stamps, or an increase in self esteem. Put what Trump has done for the American people to get them all those things!
Uhm. It’s possible for multiple things to be “particularly disturbing” at once, mmmkay. It’s bad mental hygiene to be permanently outraged.
Forget it jake. It’s Floriduh.
I am really curious here, as this is a donation jar, who is the actual owner of the money? Who is the victim?
Whatever the sentence is for this felony. She can go to a halfway house when she’s released. Disgusting.
OK, sooo it looks like the part of the blog that tells you somebody has replied to you is not operating. Earlier today, the blog was not picking up people correctly, and you had to reenter your name and email each time BUT that part seems to have been fixed!
Best wishes to whoever is trying to get everything back to normal!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporting
Testing
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Unless the thief is a child or a teenager, half-measures and sympathy in sentencing are nearly always counterproductive. It only serves to embolden them to steal again.
There are four types of criminal that should never be given leniency: psychopaths; gang bangers; serial rapists; and thieves.
I’m gonna [lay Nostra-dumb-ass here and say you are a Trumpanzee. I pray you receive what you give when judgment day arrives.
John:
“you are a Trumpanzee.” You are comparing someone to a chimp over political differences. That’s the kind of talk that lost Roseanne her television show. Dual track morality?
Darren:
True psychopaths are terrifying. I recently read an interesting article about one of the pioneers in psychopathology, Dr Hare, who created the PCL-R to diagnose psychopaths.
He discusses how psychopaths get out of jail on parole more often and earlier than non-psychopathic inmates. They are clever and know how to put on a mask that can fool parole boards and even psychologists.
The story about his encounter with his first psychopath while working in prison is chilling. After the inmate managed to manipulate Dr. Hare into recommending him for plush prison jobs, he allegedly sabotaged his car’s brakes when he took it to the prison mechanics shop on his last day. They went out with his family inside.
He discusses how psychopaths get out of jail on parole more often and earlier than non-psychopathic inmates. They are clever and know how to put on a mask that can fool parole boards and even psychologists.
Well, why not eliminate parole boards and the shizzy processes they use to evaluate an inmate’s ‘sincerity’?
Instead, have the warden of the prison compile a dossier of guards’ reports on an inmate’s behavior in prison, and allow the inmate the right of reply with the assistance of his lawyer or a family member. The warden sends a copy of the dossier and the replay with identifying information replaced with code numbers to headquarters. HQ convenes a parole jury which consists of prison system employees who have at least two years of fieldwork under their belts who have never worked in any of the prisons where the inmate has been housed while he was housed there. You just pick employees at random out of a directory and then exclude those whose fieldwork history has been insufficient or who crossed paths with the prisoner at some point and keep picking until you have a six man jury. Send a copy of the dossier and reply to each juror and have them meet at a standard location for a day or so of deliberation ‘ere making their decision by majority vote. The jurors make a blind decision based on the inmate’s observed behavior while in custody. The decision isn’t vested in gubernatorial appointees divorced from day to day life in prisons, but by a random cross section of people who know the prison world from the inside.
Is it a crime to steal donations? For example, if I go to a coffee shop in the morning, ask for an extra cup, write “donations for JT” on it and place it on the counter, then after a few hours it has some change and bills and some bum walks off with it, who has he stolen from? I would think that once a donation is in the custody of the intended receipient, that it would be a crime to steal it. For example, stealing from a Goodwill store or locked donation box. But if the intended recipient has never received the donation, as in the above example of a jar of change on the counter of a public establishment, I’m not so sure. In any case, I do not believe that her addition should lesson her punishment. Just like with the long line of cases which hold that one who voluntarily consumes alcohol is responsible for any harm he causes as a result.
Addiction, not addition, lol.
Tin,..,
If donations for JT were stolen, Turley would be on the thief like white on rice!😊😄
Rehabilitation clinic and then community service for a year.
What type of pain was she in that required crack as a painkiller?
None. If she is like most addicts I know, the whole “I had to take pain pills after my car wreck, and then Lo!, and Behold!, I became an addict!” story is a crock of crap. It’s to make you feel sorry for them, and to help them pretend it isn’t their fault that they are performing oral sexual services on strangers for money to buy dope, or just breaking in cars and things.
Most people start taking drugs to “party”, and then don’t stop. Just like most drunks. You don’t hear alcoholics give the “I was in a car wreck” story. Until they have their Moment of Clarity, they blame a lot of other people and stuff, but I have never heard of one of them blaming the pain after a wreck.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – If you have an addictive personality and you start taking pain pills, there is a good chance you will get hooked on them. Even when they clean up, the addictive personality does not go away. They just have to replace a bad addiction with a good addiction or they start the cycle again.
Hence your need to post?
Tony – you got it in one. 😉
Why? The point of the penal courts is punishment inducing deterrence, not employment opportunities for social workers. Jail, labor services until restitution is paid, and corporal punishment through the birch, cane, or pillory.