Over the 3.5 years I spent driving around in my taxi, I had a few opportunities to clean after messes created by the criminal justice system. I've decided "justice" is mostly a make-work program for lawyers and prison guards.
> When the formerly incarcerated are released from prison, they are given anywhere from $10 to $200 in cash and sent on their way, often with no job or housing prospects, and few contacts in the outside world.
When the people are released from the Maricopa County Jail, they frequently have nothing, not even the cell phone they had on them when they got mickeyed up. Cell phones with removable batteries are given back to people when they're released. Phones with non-removable batteries have to be claimed from property, which is open during regular business hours.
One of the more-important things I wrote for kuro5hin.org (RIP) was titled Who Are Your Lifelines? [0]. It was about the passenger who called me from jail because he remembered my number. I went to visit, got his gmail password... Eventually I bailed him out myself, as it was "only" $300... I exercise my mental phone book regularly on his account.
When I helped him out the last time he was arrested (on a 2-year old warrant for a missed court appearance), he had no choice but to write off his phone, as he had no identification by which to get his property back.
[0] http://www.taxiwars.org/p/who-are-your-lifelines.html
The other passenger was a young woman who was released 15 miles from where she was picked up [1], when the city cops found a blond-haired white woman who was a better candidate for the beer thief they were looking for. Even if she'd had a cell phone with phone numbers of people she might've called for a ride, she only would have been able to reclaim it during banking hours, not at 10pm when she was released to the street. A hotel let her use their phone to call the taxi company for a ride.
[1] Ordinary Rendition: The Public Servants' Quagmire, https://www.taxiwars.org/2017/10/ordinary-rendition-public-s...
Sometimes justice is important, sometimes "justice" is a rigged game. We all pay the price for its flawed implementation.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.