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I'm not picking on or singling Texas out. I don't care which state it is. Life imprisonment for stealing $35 of food is bullshit. Repeat offender or not. Ther

I'm not picking on or singling Texas out. I don't care which state it is. Life imprisonment for stealing $35 of food is bullshit. Repeat offender or not. There's a fundamental problem with a society that is okay with an increasing prison population spending their entire adult lives there because of terminal sentences on the basis of recidivism. Increasing sentences for recidivism itself is constitutionally debatable, I think, though I'm not sure if it has been challenged on that basis. This is America, though. It'd probably stand cos we like the idea of systemic incarceration as a means to low crime rates.

talmand 13y ago
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but some might complain there's little difference between stealing $1000 over ten criminal acts or all of it in one robbery.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  That point is debatable, certainly. I don't like to harp on things that have become politicized too often, but this particular case stands in such stark contrast to bankers who made off with billions, none of whom to my knowledge are spending the rest of their lives in a common prison. That's why the howls of injustice, to quote another commenter. $35 in ribs, taken by repeat offender, is apparently a greater crime against society than the repeat offense of fleecing the entire society.