The Ultimate Safety Net
Hey Folks,
Who says this isn't a compassionate Christian country? Who says the government doesn't look out for the most needy among us? Who says the economy isn't booming?
See!! If a person is willing to take entry level jobs and sharpen his skills, a three year sabbatical - all expenses paid - is within easy reach!!
- Uke Man
Man’s desire to go to prison is worrisome
Monday, October 16, 2006
ANN FISHER
At first, perhaps we chuckle about the local fellow who robbed a bank to secure a prison berth for three years — until he’s 66 and eligible for Social Security.
After all, who in his or her right mind thinks about relying on that for the long haul?
The story of Timothy Bowers instead should sober us to the larger implications of a society in which older members feel driven to crime for survival.
Judge Angela White ordered a psychological exam of Bowers, who turns 63 in about a week. He was deemed competent, so she sentenced him to three years in prison, granting his birthday wish. Dispatch reporter Kevin Mayhood wrote about the case last week.
Bowers thinks that a three-year hitch in prison is a better use of his human resources than to continue scrounging for jobs that don’t pay a living wage and usually go to younger applicants.
"It’s unfortunate you feel this is the only way to deal with the situation," White told Bowers in court.
Unfortunate for whom?
For his last pre-holdup meal, the Navy veteran and South High School graduate ordered the "Two for $2" hot dog special at a Speedway gas station near his apartment. Then he walked a few blocks to a Fifth Third Bank and handed a teller his note.
After securing the money from the teller, he waited calmly for police to arrive.
The implications are chilling, that he would seek safe harbor in a place of punishment.
Last December, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote about other elderly criminals, a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens who sell their pain pills to buy food and pay the heating bills.
What is the crime here, the newspaper asked in an editorial? That an 87-year-old sold her OxyContin pills for $10 each, or that she lives in a society in which she feels driven to such a crime just to eat?
This isn’t just about America, either. Japan, another highly industrialized and wealthy nation, has a greater proportion of older people than the United States, so officials there expect more elderly criminals. A Japanese criminology expert also suggested in an Associated Press article in February that "thinning family ties, a lack of income and increasing medical expenses" are behind the increase.
The Japanese Justice Ministry is studying the trend there to learn whether some also are committing crimes in hopes of imprisonment, "where shelter and three meals a day are guaranteed."
That was Bowers’ plan.
It might appear harebrained at first, but walk a mile in his threadbare shoes, live a day of his life eking out an existence at most. He’s worked at a series of odd jobs since 2003, when he lost his delivery route for a drug wholesaler after it closed. The odd jobs just didn’t cover the bills of 21 st-century subsistence.
Will prisons become the ad hoc roomand-board operation for society’s aged throwaways? If we’re headed in that direction, it will get expensive, not to mention increasingly inappropriate.
If you believe in the six-degrees-of separation theory, chances are you know or could know people like Bowers, who live on the edge, scraping by for years, never making enough. Finally, the winter gets too cold, the arthritis pills get too expensive.
Perhaps they don’t make the conscious leap to a prison cell, but are you comforted by that?
Ann Fisher is a Dispatch Metro columnist. She can be reached at 614-461-8759 or by e-mail. afisher@dispatch.com
Who says this isn't a compassionate Christian country? Who says the government doesn't look out for the most needy among us? Who says the economy isn't booming?
See!! If a person is willing to take entry level jobs and sharpen his skills, a three year sabbatical - all expenses paid - is within easy reach!!
- Uke Man
Man’s desire to go to prison is worrisome
Monday, October 16, 2006
ANN FISHER
At first, perhaps we chuckle about the local fellow who robbed a bank to secure a prison berth for three years — until he’s 66 and eligible for Social Security.
After all, who in his or her right mind thinks about relying on that for the long haul?
The story of Timothy Bowers instead should sober us to the larger implications of a society in which older members feel driven to crime for survival.
Judge Angela White ordered a psychological exam of Bowers, who turns 63 in about a week. He was deemed competent, so she sentenced him to three years in prison, granting his birthday wish. Dispatch reporter Kevin Mayhood wrote about the case last week.
Bowers thinks that a three-year hitch in prison is a better use of his human resources than to continue scrounging for jobs that don’t pay a living wage and usually go to younger applicants.
"It’s unfortunate you feel this is the only way to deal with the situation," White told Bowers in court.
Unfortunate for whom?
For his last pre-holdup meal, the Navy veteran and South High School graduate ordered the "Two for $2" hot dog special at a Speedway gas station near his apartment. Then he walked a few blocks to a Fifth Third Bank and handed a teller his note.
After securing the money from the teller, he waited calmly for police to arrive.
The implications are chilling, that he would seek safe harbor in a place of punishment.
Last December, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote about other elderly criminals, a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens who sell their pain pills to buy food and pay the heating bills.
What is the crime here, the newspaper asked in an editorial? That an 87-year-old sold her OxyContin pills for $10 each, or that she lives in a society in which she feels driven to such a crime just to eat?
This isn’t just about America, either. Japan, another highly industrialized and wealthy nation, has a greater proportion of older people than the United States, so officials there expect more elderly criminals. A Japanese criminology expert also suggested in an Associated Press article in February that "thinning family ties, a lack of income and increasing medical expenses" are behind the increase.
The Japanese Justice Ministry is studying the trend there to learn whether some also are committing crimes in hopes of imprisonment, "where shelter and three meals a day are guaranteed."
That was Bowers’ plan.
It might appear harebrained at first, but walk a mile in his threadbare shoes, live a day of his life eking out an existence at most. He’s worked at a series of odd jobs since 2003, when he lost his delivery route for a drug wholesaler after it closed. The odd jobs just didn’t cover the bills of 21 st-century subsistence.
Will prisons become the ad hoc roomand-board operation for society’s aged throwaways? If we’re headed in that direction, it will get expensive, not to mention increasingly inappropriate.
If you believe in the six-degrees-of separation theory, chances are you know or could know people like Bowers, who live on the edge, scraping by for years, never making enough. Finally, the winter gets too cold, the arthritis pills get too expensive.
Perhaps they don’t make the conscious leap to a prison cell, but are you comforted by that?
Ann Fisher is a Dispatch Metro columnist. She can be reached at 614-461-8759 or by e-mail. afisher@dispatch.com
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