People are arrested all of the time in America, of which, some of those so arrested, are able to relatively easily be released, soon thereafter, on their own recognizance or through some monetary bail amount, reasonable or unreasonable that they thereby have found the means to secure; and then there are all those others, who typically are already disadvantaged, ill-educated, poor, defenseless, and without good reliable resources to turn to in their time of difficulty – for these people, even what appears to be a reasonable bail amount is not reasonable, and in absence of some sort of progressive acting judge or legislation, they are basically left in an incarcerated state, pending the outcome of their trial, plea bargain, or other adjudication procedures, which can take days, weeks, months, or even longer.
The first thing to recognize for anyone that is incarcerated pending judicial procedures, irrespective of their culpability or alleged crime, is that anytime a person is placed into a position in which they no longer are free, but are bound instead to the criminal justice system, basically just about everything in that person’s life begins to erode, decay, and to come apart, in very short order. For example, those that are employed, and are unable to show up for work by virtue of their incarceration, are prone to being dismissed; and some are dismissed simply for having been arrested, so seen as a violation of their employment terms. Additionally, all those that have family obligations, pet obligations, utility bills, car notes, credit card bills, and just about anything that so requires being addressed in a timely manner, of which, this subsequently is not successfully addressed, is going to wreak havoc on that person’s credit, that person’s livelihood, and that person’s life. All this, for those so being incarcerated, without the ready means to bail out, and having been convicted of nothing.
So too, those that are incarcerated, are never in the catbird’s seat when it comes to any sort of negotiation with the prosecuting arm of the state, and are quite obviously vulnerable as well as being susceptible to getting no more than the short end of the stick from such. This thus essentially signifies, that an individual that is in a state of incarceration, and unable to bail out, doesn’t have any good options, nor does that person have any leverage with anybody in the justice system, for they are locked up, and therefore time is not their friend, whatsoever.
Not too surprisingly, in a justice system, which is all about volume, and never about quality or fairness, thereof, prosecutors see those so unable to bail out, as the easiest of targets to pressure or to coerce into making a plea bargain deal, and so when that prosecutor offers the seemingly most sensible of deals, of the punishment being no more than “time served” this sure does seem like a tempting offer for that person currently locked up. Yet, while it does provide some sort of “freedom” that freedom is paid through a fairly hefty price, which reflects firstly that there wasn’t any trial, and implicit within this offer from the prosecutor is often an inkling that their case was weak or of little merit; in addition to the fact that those so pleading guilty to that “time served” are now convicted of a crime, with probation usually attached, a possible monetary fine, as well as possible community service.
It is rather amazing how so many are convicted to “time served” as if somehow the justice system gets it just right, not too harsh, and not too lenient; but this is the illusion, and never the truth.