CrimLaw

Found in the Blawgosphere:

Gotta agree with Will Baude here. The courts are flooded by people who committed "ill thought out crimes." Drugs seem to be the most common cause of this particular type of crime and people who are jonesing don't particularly care if they are caught just as long as they get some money to get their next fix.

Case in point: There is a convenience store in the county wherein I live which will cash any check as long as you provide an ID and give a thumbprint. It has signs telling you that you are being filmed as you cash the check. But everybody knows it will cash all checks and, as a result, there is a steady stream of bad checks cashed there. Every drug addict in the county seems to make it there eventually to cash a check for a couple hundred dollars (a check he has stolen from somebody's mailbox or his employer or his mom, or . . .). They go to jail for a while, get back out on the street, and the next time they are really desperate for a fix go back and cash another check. It's obvious they will get caught but they don't stop.

C'est la vie.