No matter how hard we try, society just can’t avoid Lindsay Lohan! She is back in the news again, only this time it’s to pay the piper, figuratively of course. This past Wednesday, she was sentenced to thirty days behind bars at the Lynwood Jail in Los Angeles. The sad truth is that everybody knows she won’t have to serve the full sentence, just like Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and Khloe Kardashian before her. This is really upsetting because with celebrity crimes seemingly on the rise within the past ten years, judges are missing their opportunities to make an example out of them.
Paris was given a sentence of more than three weeks for violating her probation in a DUI related case…she served 3 days in LA county jail and served the rest of her “hard time”/house arrest in her luxurious LA mansion. I wonder if the inmates in Lynwood have assistants to bring them dinner from The Ivy and Starbucks every morning too…You may also recall my second post in which Nicole Richie’s freeway exploits were detailed. She had pot and Vicodin in her system and drove on the wrong side of the freeway. An ordinary person might think she has officially lost her mind. Apparently the judge in that case felt differently because he put her through eighty-two minutes of hell. I mean, she got out of jail in less time than it takes to watch Titanic!
Back in 2007, HecklerSpray.com posted an eerily prophetic statement about the freckled-felon Lindsay Lohan, stating “Any minute now we'll tell you that Lindsay Lohan will spend one day in jail for repeatedly failing to realize that shoving cocaine into her pockets and driving around drunk isn't really all that legal.” The fact that someone was able to predict that this would in fact happen, and it pretty much will, is either indicative of the celebrities’ lack of awareness or the judges’ lack of awareness. Situations like these make a mockery of the criminal justice system. Call it overcrowding, call it special treatment; I call it ridiculous. For years we have been taught in our criminal justice classes that the goal of incarcerating someone is to not only hold them accountable, but to attempt to rehabilitate them. How exactly is that being exhibited here? L.A. sherriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore was quoted this past Wednesday on PeopleMagazine.com saying, “[Lindsay] probably won’t be serving the full 30 days. She’s subject to early release for good behavior and overcrowding.” If there are criminals already incarcerated that are dealing with the effects of prison overcrowding why are Paris, Nicole, and most likely Lindsay, not forced to get in the trenches with the rest of them? This is just too similar to when parents threaten to spank their children and then after years of never being hit, the children learn that their parents are just full of empty threats.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20541943,00.html
http://www.hecklerspray.com/nicole-richie-my-82-minute-jail-sentence-hell/20079796.php
