FARMINGTON, Mo. - It's a hefty price for a pastry: A man accused of stealing a 52-cent doughnut could face time in jail.
Authorities said Scott A. Masters, 41, slipped the doughnut into his sweat shirt without paying, then pushed away a clerk who tried to stop him as he fled the store.
The push is being treated as minor assault, which transforms a misdemeanor shoplifting charge to a strong-armed robbery with a potential prison term of five to 15 years. Because he has a criminal history, prosecutors say they could seek 30 years.
What is it with the US?
In America a lot of states have introduced three strikes laws, which this guy must have been sentenced under. Three strikes and you know the criminal is sufficiently harden enough to deserve being locked away for a long time. Along with the building of lots of new prisons, the USA has seen it's crime rate plunge to levels not seen since the 1970's. In Australia and Britain crime is at record levels, mainly because we aren't putting enough police on the streets, not building enough prisons and sentencing repeat offenders to very long sentences.
Do you not see something disturbing in the US having the
highest number of prisoners per capita in the entire world, while still having the
8th highest crime rate? The US prison population per capita is 6-8 times as great as most other developed countries, and outstrips even the worst shitholes by a large margin, yet having such a vast number of people in prison seems to have done little for the crime rate.
This article provides an analysis of the crime industry in the US.