Chicago Criminal Lawyer Blog
Are you woke? Are your kids woke? Is it good to be woke? Where does ‘woke’ come from? How do I become woke if I’m not already? What are these kids on about?
Woke is a new front of the culture war and it is essentially a type of rebranded identity politics that criticizes some of the structural problems with governance and policing. While it has serious marketing problems due in large part to troll armies and bad marketing, there are a lot of ideas that need to be looked at and even if they are discarded, being more aware of the problems and learning how to self-crit like these woke people do is not necessarily a bad thing.
In this article, we will take a look at some of the woke reforms that have the Boomers up in arms.
Defund the Police
This one falls under the banner of bad marketing. Defunding the police, according to woke advocates, does not mean ridding the world of police officers (even though that is exactly what it sounds like and a broad section of the woke base would love to see this happen). It actually means diversifying police services to include mental health interventions. Police are generally trained to apprehend a suspect and sort the rest out later. If mental health experts can be called to the scene to negotiate first, perhaps fewer of these interventions would result in avoidable injuries and deaths.
Cashless Bail
Woke people are very interested in leveling the playing field for the poor. While rich people going free does not necessarily concern the woke, poor people pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit just so they can be released from jail and not have to wait for a trial is problematic, unjust, unfair, and means that poor people can be convicted just on an accusation. Folks fall into two camps on this matter. There are those that recognize that poor people play by a different set of rules and those that ignore the fact entirely or simply do not care. Cashless bail does not mean that those accused of crimes would get to wait for trial in the comfort of their homes. It means that judges would make a determination to release the suspect based on the allegations. Those accused of violent crimes would not be released. But the issue would not come down to whether or not you can afford to pay your way out of prison, thus leveling the playing field.
A Crime Penalized With a Fine Only Exists for the Poor
If you can pay your way out of committing crimes and can afford to do that without it hurting you, then does the crime really exist for you? It is slightly naive to think this, but rich people who are fined can actually afford to pay their way out of it while poor people may be strapped to repay the fine and end up with jail time instead. Other countries approach the matter by penalizing an individual however many days of pay. So, instead of everyone paying a $5,000 fine, everyone might pay three days’ pay. The amount of money would differ based on your income, but still be uniform and thus fair.
What do you think about these reforms?
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David Freidberg represents the interests of those charged with crimes in the Chicago area. Call our office at (312) 560-7100 and we can begin preparing your defense immediately.
