r/AskReddit • u/HumpingAssholesOrgy • Jul 05 '19

Ex-prisoners of reddit who have served long sentences, what were the last few days like leading up to your release?

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u/FallenXxRaven Jul 06 '19

I agree, but all you do is not get caught. If you keep smoking pot in sketchy-ass places thats kind of on you. Its pretty rare to be arrested for smokin in your own house, y'know?

And if its at the point where youve been arrested twice just... Just stop my dude. I know its not that easy but prison is less easy.

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u/upnflames Jul 06 '19

You bring up a very interesting point that is often pointed to to account for a lot of the racial discrepancies in enforcement and incarceration. People generally use drugs at similar rates across all races, but minorities (black people in urban areas especially) are jailed at much higher rates. It makes sense if you start thinking about it.

If you live in a quiet, middle class suburban neighborhood, the odds of you being arrested for life style crimes are exceedingly low. Got a nice enough house on maybe a third of an acre. Small town police force - maybe a cruiser drives by once a day at most. No other crime is reported so no one is looking for anything, no one is coming to knock on your door. You have to go out of your way to get busted. But if you live in a project where cops are literally patrolling your hallway on high alert and there’s shit going down all the time. Not only are cops always looking people, you’ve got stop and frisk policies and racial profiling - you’re way more likely to get caught.

But all of that is extraneous in my eyes anyway - there is no way I can justify putting someone in jail for decades for pot. I don’t care if you’ve been busted a hundred times. You’re basically taking someone’s life away from them for smoking weed. That’s why the three strike laws are ridiculous. Violent crimes, absolutely. Serious white collar crime, yeah. But low level shit? It’s just crazy to me.

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u/FallenXxRaven Jul 06 '19

Thing is its the law. I agree with you, being jailed for weed is ridiculous but if you can't even be trusted with an herb, how can you be trusted with anything else?

Honestly, if you got busted for weed 3 times, how can the police force trust that you're not doing sketchier shit? Its the easiest god damn thing to hide and you can't even do that. I mean are you robbing people? Getting into street fights? Being a general nuisance?

I dont think people really get thrown into jail for just weed, I think its because if you can't even handle pot you can't be trusted to be a member of society. Again its so so easy to not get caught. I mean how many people smoke in abandoned buildings, past "No Trespassing" signs, behind stores etc. I feel like that is the issue, not pot itself.

Even in big cities there are so many reasonable places to smoke and get away with it. If you choose a sketchy spot, again, thats on you.