Galt

“…this article also explains that 60% of our locked up guests are non violent offenders, you know, the child support dodgers.”


Instead of legalizing drugs with all of the problems which this entails (driving with other motorists stoned, babies born addicted, more workplace errors and so on) why not begin to reduce the prison population by simply applying, universally, the most basic legal principle upon which all criminal law is (supposedly) based in this country? I am speaking of the Principle of Innocent until Proven Guilty.

The men mentioned in the quotation, above, may indeed be guilty of violating a judge’s order to pay child support. But what if the divorce, itself, occurred not as the result of anything done by the men but instead by their wives? What if these women divorced their husbands only so that they could be with their lovers full-time? What if they simply were gold-diggers who decided to “upgrade” to a man with more means?

In my view the above circumstances would mean that the divorce, itself, was not morally justified and, therefore, neither was the “fruit of the rotten tree”, the award of custody and child support to these women. Hence, in such cases, the men involved were innocent of any wrongdoing and any order to pay anything, to anyone, ultimately resulting from such unproven “guilt” is unjustified and unsustainable.

I wonder how many of these men would be released from prison, thus relieving the burden not only on the men themselves but on all of us, if the aforementioned principle could only be recognized in this area of law. I doubt if we will ever know, however, as there are just too many vested interests in the persons of greedy divorce lawyers, demagogic politicians and forever-upgrading gold diggers for such law to ever be reformed!