Comment by heavyset_go

3 years ago

And yet they choose to go after people for $20 worth of weed, coke, MDMA, etc. It's not about cost, it's about police discretion when it comes to the crimes they choose to investigate or the laws they choose to enforce.

7 comments

heavyset_go

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uoaei  3 years ago

Putting that body in a jail cell or prison is worth much more than $20 to those who have influence over how police spend their time. That's the point.

sgjohnson  3 years ago

Because it’s easy to prosecute. You got the suspect dead to rights, with $20 worth of whatever on their person.

And it’s not like those cases even go to trial. I don’t have the exact data on hand, but I’d be seriously surprised if >90% of small-time drug crimes ended up with a plea deal that most of the time doesn’t even involve pleading guilty to a felony.

  • heavyset_go  3 years ago

    > Because it’s easy to prosecute. You got the suspect dead to rights, with $20 worth of whatever on their person.

    Police regularly spend countless man-hours investigating people for selling $20 worth of marijuana. Those are not open and shut cases, they have to spend time building cases, use confidential informants or undercover officers to gather damning evidence that won't be thrown out in court, etc.