Ex cons and criminals

We constantly see statistics about prison populations, courts, and crime. How many ex-cons do you know? In my little world, there is only one, he's a guy I only ever met once, and so far I like him.

A guy I don't count, who I've run into many times, is in a county jail for back child support. His son is 27 now. He was unemployed anyway, his living conditions were primitive, and he may well be much more comfortable in that county jail cell. An unemployed dead beat doesn't qualify as a criminal, does he? I mean, if he was a real criminal he'd have money and pay his bills. Right?

A fellow who won't exit my memory, is a kid I didn't meet driving cab. His name was Creston. He helped me move a neighbor of his. Very nice kid. He worked hard. When we finished, I paid him the pay any other man would expect for such a days work.

I ran into his former neighbor in the grocery a few months later, and asked about him. She said he was in the county jail, awaiting trial for some kind of robbery charge. She said, he and some other kids of the same ethnic background had gone out and held up a couple of white college students one night. She said his mom was letting him rot in the county jail awaiting trial.

This woman went on to say that Creston's mother had confiscated the money I'd paid him. His mother was supposedly angry that I'd allowed her son to have money, his own hard earned cash. His mother just happened to be a student at the U at the time too. Her major? Criminal Justice. Her educational track? Pre law.

Well, Creston's mother, did that money spend good at the mall? Did you think, even once, about the future of your son? Or, is it the case that you're guiding his career intentionally?

Just a question.

I'll try to write the post I had in mind tomorrow.