I've had friends who got into this sort of situation. Being dragged into the criminal justice system is a real eye-opener. Without downplaying the distress one

I've had friends who got into this sort of situation. Being dragged into the criminal justice system is a real eye-opener. Without downplaying the distress one might feel in this situation, it's worth pointing out that here in the US, assuming you have resources (meaning, money and/or friends/relatives who will advocate for you), you almost always can get out of the clutches of this Kafka-esque nightmare within at most 72 hours. If you lack those resources, your life can become fucked pretty hard pretty fast. And it goes without saying that there are countries where instead of 3 days, you can spend weeks, months, or years in the grip of a system every bit as evil and frightening as a cheap horror flick. In fact, we (US govt) have some people like that languishing down in Cuba right now.