Today is such a day.

The Fresno Bee this morning starts us off with the unsensational headline,

Tattoo ‘hurts…it hurts a lot,’ boy says (Pablo Lopez, “Tattoo ‘hurts…it hurts a lot,’ boy says” (May 26, 2010) The Fresno Bee, A1.)

The story is of a boy who allegedly was forcibly held down and tattooed with a gang tattoo by his father, who is said to be a Bulldog gang member.  Most people to whom I’ve spoken agree — and the story indicates the defense attorneys are also arguing this — that the charge, which is aggravated mayhem, was intended to be used for defendants accused of permanently disfiguring someone, such as by cutting off an arm, ear, or by setting them on fire.

If convicted, the father and his “accomplice” in this crime are looking at life in prison.

That’s right.  Life.  For tattooing his son.

Under California law, tattooing a minor is a crime punishable as a misdemeanor, with a maximum of six months in jail, or a fine, or both.  (CA Pen. Code §653; CA Pen. Code §19.)

But that’s not good enough.  These guys are gang members.  GANG MEMBERS, I TELL YOU!

Sorry.  I was getting into the spirit of things.  When gang members are involved, after all, no punishment is serious enough.  Especially if, on top of being gang members, they happen to commit a crime.  Even a misdemeanor.

If it weren’t for the huge amount of human suffering involved, I’d be delighted to see the District Attorney’s office — and some segments of the public — screaming for yet another relatively trivial crime resulting in life in prison.  I’ve already written elsewhere about the impact this has on our budgets.

The Fresno Bee provides some insight into that problem, too, on page 3:

Pot clinic owner in jail tug-of-war (Paula Lloyd, “Pot clinic owner in jail tug-of-war” (May 26, 2010) A3.

Robert Morse, the owner of a Tower District medical-marijuana clinic, has been sent back to jail yet again by Judge Franson, who appears to be primarily angered over the lack of respect shown his court by Morse.  Morse has repeatedly ignored the judge’s orders.  Now it’s the Sheriff’s turn.

Sheriff Mims, claiming to be acting under a federal mandate, keeps releasing Morse due to jail overcrowding.  The judge keeps sending him back and telling the Sheriff to keep him there until a 15-day sentence handed down by the judge has been served.

Morse can’t be kept because we’re busy locking up “violent” gang members for misdemeanors.  Our prison system is also in a near-meltdown state because of the increasing numbers of people being sent there for what are really societally-disapproved behaviors which, frankly, should not be crimes.

There’s no word yet on whether Judge Franson will add Sheriff Mims to the list of prisoners he wants held for dissing him.

Tattoos are great for at least semi-permanently marking individuals for easy classification.  California hasn’t quite reached the point yet of demanding tattoos for criminals — frankly, they don’t have to, since criminals have been more than happy to tattoo themselves — but for that class of criminals attempting to keep a low profile, the State will have none of it.

The same Fresno Bee that brought me the above stories tells me about a California Assembly bill which will require certain sex offenders to wear Hawthorne’s Scarlet “A” — well, okay, maybe it’s not an “A”; it’s some “distinctive stripe or color,” possibly not even scarlet — on their driver’s licenses.  The stated goal is to make it easier for law enforcement to be “on alert when they stop and question people.”

It will also allow, of course, for anyone else — bartenders, waitresses, sales people checking ID against a credit card, etc. — to know that a sex offender is in their midst.  This will make them safer — the viewer, that is; not the sex offender, who can probably be expected to be subjected to further harassment.  But, hey, it’s a sex offender, right?  It’s not like we’re talking about a person we’d like to entice into acting like the human we don’t think he is!

The bill is backed by that most un-impassioned of California critters, the ones who increasingly structure how our criminal “justice” system works: the father of a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered.  Oh, and, that more despicable class of compassionate California critter, who only wants what’s best for California: our politicians.  It’s bipartisan, though (who doesn’t hate sex offenders?): sponsor Pedro Nava is a Democrat, while sponsor Paul Cook is Republican.

The bill is a missed opportunity, though, for solving all the problems discussed in this blog post in one feel swoop.  I’m almost afraid to say this:  So far, nobody has looked at the possibility of balancing the budget by releasing gang members from jails and prisons and providing them with small business loans to allow them to open tattoo parlors under the condition that they provide free forehead tattoos to California’s burgeoning sex offender population.

The sad thing is, the way things are going, some brain-dead “damn the rule of law, gotta support those victims!” politician is bound to latch onto something similar soon.

Which is apparently why many law enforcement officers have so much difficulty with distinguishing between people they just don’t like or understand, and criminals.

According to a front-page story in the Fresno Bee today, the police are unable to distinguish between groups of people who share similar interests on the one hand, and members of so-called “criminal street gangs” on the other.  Well, they do make one concession, at least temporarily…for the moment:

[P]olice call Juggalos members of a gang — not on the level of the Bulldogs or Villa Posse, Fresno’s most notorious gangs, but a gang nonetheless.  (Jim Guy, “Are they a gang, or just clowning around?” (July 18, 2009) FresnoBee.com.)

So this new “gang” the Fresno Police Department has identified is not quite as bad as the Bulldogs or Villa Posse.  But they’re still a gang.  (And as almost any criminal defense attorney in California can tell you, many police officers, prosecutors and judges definitely cannot tell the difference between a “gang” and a “criminal street gang.”  But that’s for another article.)

It’s actually not entirely clear to which gang these mentally-challenged police officers believe Juggalos belong.  “Juggalos” is a name given to males; females have apparently been labeled “Jugalettes.” Basically, they are…

…young people who sometimes put on clown facepaint and wear clothing with the emblem of a running man carrying a hatchet — the logo of a rap label called Psychopathic Records. (Guy, supra.)

Other than this and the fact that, like other people do with their friends, they sometimes hang around together,

Juggalos also are responsible for fights, drug use and occasional property crimes, police say.  (Guy, supra.)

Folks, this is exactly why anti-gang legislation is — to put it as mildly as I can — pure bullshit.

Are Juggalos or Jugalettes responsible for these crimes?  Or are people who wear facepaint and know other people who wear facepaint responsible for these crimes?  Or are hominids with dark-colored hair who know other hominids with dark-colored hair responsible for these crimes?  What about creatures with skin sometimes seen in the vicinity of other creatures with skin?  Are they responsible for these crimes?  Maybe things that move upon the earth with two hands each containing five fingers and occasionally hang out with other things that move upon the earth with two hands each containing five fingers are responsible for these crimes.

How about none of the above?  It’s not Juggalos, or Jugalettes.  It’s not people who wear facepaint.  It’s not hominids with dark-colored hair or creatures with skin.  Or, at least, it’s not merely “things that fit those descriptions.”  Regardless of whether or not they sometimes hang out with others like them.  Human beings who actually commit crimes are responsible for crimes.  Individuals commit crimes.

This modern trend in American “justice” — and, really, there is no longer anything just about it — this trend away from the individualization of guilt is not simply a violation of the very foundational principles of this once-great nation, it is unsustainable.  Eventually, if we continue locking people up for longer and longer periods of time just because they happen to know other people with whom they share similar perfectly legal interests, we’re going to run out of prisons and the money to build and run them.

Oh, wait…that’s actually already happened.

And yet we continue, seemingly inexorably, down the slippery slope to almost total reliance on generalizations to determine who is committing crimes and how — and how long — they should be punished.

Although some degree of generalization is involved in all human reasoning, reliance almost entirely on generalizations seems a long way from the individualized suspicions that are meant to define probable cause.  (Andrew E. Taslitz, Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment: A History of Search and Seizure, 1789-1868 (2006) 88; italics in original.)

Ironically, the case Taslitz cites for that principle was already hastening our slide over the edge of reason and down the slippery slope.  In Maryland v. Pringle (2003) 540 U.S. 366, the United States Supreme Court held that a man was properly arrested for committing the crime of possession of a controlled substance because he was a passenger in a car with some other people where the substance was found.  Mr. Pringle was a passenger in the front seat of the car.  When the driver was stopped for speeding, police searched the car and found cocaine hidden behind an armrest in the back seat.  Nobody “fessed up,” so the police just arrested them all.

Normally, this would be a pretty piss-poor reason to arrest.  You’re going to arrest everyone who was near the drugs, even though the drugs were hidden from view, because you don’t know to whom they belong? Yes, said the ignoramuses on the United States Supreme Court.  According to them, people don’t just get into a car containing drugs without knowing the drugs are there.  But as Taslitz states,

[M]y own life experience in high school and as a prosecutor shows that the contrary may often be true, that is, that sober people, users, and dealers can all be friends and yet, in certain settings, the sober ones are thoroughly unaware of their friends’ criminality.  (Taslitz, supra, at 88.)

And that, my friends, brings us back full circle to the stupidity of the apparent chain of reasoning that has lead the Fresno Police Department to believe that Juggalos, or Jugalettes, or people with labels that start with “J-U-G,” are gang members — worse yet, criminal street gang members (because the story states they are subject to “greater scrutiny and punishment when crimes are committed,” which is only true of criminal street gangs).

People who wear blue jeans may know other people who wear blue jeans.  Heck, you might even run into two of them talking to one another in public.  You might even be a person who wears blue jeans and who has friends who wear blue jeans.  These facts do not mean that every time someone who wears blue jeans commits a crime, you have some connection to the crime.  It doesn’t mean that if you later (god forbid!) commit a crime, you should be charged for the crime, with a gang enhancement added on because of the blue jeans.  The same is true for people who wear Oakland Raiders jackets, blue shirts, red Fresno State baseball caps, Girl Scout uniforms — heck, the same thing might even be true of guys who dress up in militarized uniforms, complete with badges and embroidered insignia, who share a common name, sign or symbol, and two or more many of whom commit crimes!  (See Penal Code section 186.22(f); “What is a Gang?” available at www.streetgangs.com/laws/definition_gang.html (last visited July 18, 2009).)

And it’s probably also true of music lovers who paint their faces and dress similarly to other such music lovers and are called, or even perhaps call themselves, “Juggalos” or “Jugalettes.”

It’s time to stop clowning around with the concept of justice.

It’s time to evolve beyond the mindset of primeval slugs who cannot tell the differences amongst individuals who commit crimes and individuals who don’t based on the idea that “they all look alike.”

It’s time to stop putting troglodytes into uniforms, slapping guns and badges on them, and pretending they have enough common sense not to shoot or lock us all up just because we aren’t one of them.