3 years and a buck eighty five

so i'm reading TIME magazine and they have this section called numbers where they list odd, unusual or perplexing statistics. example: there was an 80% decrease in the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis that can result from drinking four cups of coffee a day, according to a new study. this number is followed with this statistic: average cups of coffee drunk by the average american each day...3.2 cups. interesting. light. thought provoking.

the numbers that caught my eye though had little to do with our drinking habits. according to the magazine a woman in pennsylvania was sentenced to 3 years for telling her 6 year old daughter to steal a firefighting squad's fund raising jar. guess how much was in the jar? that's right folks. $1.85. the woman was a heroin addict apparently and told police that she needed it for gas money. now that may or may not be true and at current gas rates would have gotten her to the next fire station house if she was lucky (pardon the sarcasm). but i question the reasoning of a society that sentences a woman to 3 years for encouraging her child to steal what amounts to change on the bottom of my car floor.

perhaps it's not so much her sentencing that bothers me. i'm all for tough love and who knows the woman's background and the number of times she has been in trouble with the police and social agencies. and obviously encouraging a child to steal, especially your own, is never ideal and it is safe to assume the child is being exposed or taught other things that are not healthy or good besides stealing. it's the other statistics that bother me I guess.

take for example that according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, state statistics showed that the average sentence in 1998 for a single count felony sex crime which included rape and child molestation was 4 1/2 years. would the woman have gotten 4 1/2 years if there had been .90 more cents in the fundraising jar. and that is a statistic that is repeated over and over or so it seems the media would have us believe.

now i don't want to sound uncaring. i do not believe that locking "them" all up is the solution and i question whether or not limiting where sex offenders can live is going to decrease child molestation when statistics (more numbers) show that most children are abused not by the man leering out from behind his curtain down the block from the school yard but by an uncle, a brother, a next door neighbor or grandpa. having worked with juvenile sex offenders i know that the problem is not as simple as we want to believe. our laws that restrict may be more a desire to ease our fears but not really do anything to fix the problem. but that's a whole another rant.

i just wonder where we pull the numbers, the years we choose to take or make a person give up for their crime. i believe laws are there and when broken there are and should be consequences. and i'm thankful that i'm not a judge or God because i'd probably blast someone to the moon that needed a little more grace and one more chance and let an axe murderer go out the door.

in the end i just am perplexed at the value we place on a soul/a spirit, when until the current century, abusing a child: contributing to the loss of something so essential and precious and that has not just emotional costs to the individual and family but economical and socieital impacts years down the line (think of lost labor and revenue because people cannot reach their potential or end up on drugs or on the streets or with mental issues who we support because they cannot work) costs you only 5 years of your life and stealing, albeit encouraging the delinquency of a minor, for a $1.85 gets you three.