IT TAKES A THIEF

I got ripped off this week. In the time it took me to walk from my university office, use the bathroom three doors away, and return, someone walked into my office, opened my book bag, and walked off with my laptop computer and PDA. As crimes go, this is petty stuff—more of an annoyance than a catastrophe. (The laptop was insured.) The PDA was the worst as it had all my appointments entered and it took me most of the morning to reconstruct these. Stealing it was just pure perversity because it has no resale value whatsoever. I might have been the last person on the planet actually using a PDA!

What I’m really steamed about is class injustice. It just so happens that the same day this happened to me a local court sentenced a teenager to two years in jail for stealing $50 from another teen. Okay, he threatened violence so there’s a degree of difference, but it did bring back memories of days when I was a social worker. I used to go to court and see the same scenario over and over—a city kid (often a minority) is caught stealing and goes to jail; a middle-class kid gets busted and gets a slap on the wrist. Mommy and daddy come to court, sob, tell the judge that Little Johnny was an Eagle Scout, that he “just made a horrible mistake,” and beg the court “not to let a single mistake ruin such a promising future.”

My vindictive side hopes they catch the clown who stole my stuff just so I can go to court and say “Bullshit!” when the parental tears come. I want to know why their kid deserves better than the inner-city kid. I want to invoke the Biblical axiom “To those to whom much is given, much is expected.” I want to tell the judge that because the defendant got greedy, 120 students did not get their full educational benefit for two days. (I had materials on the computer that I use in class.) I want to suggest a fine of $12,000—roughly two days’ worth of tuition for those 120 students. I want to suggest that being a thief is not a “promising career,” and that being middle class is not an excuse for being a crook. And, yes, I’d like to see the kid kicked out of the university after serving some jail time. It would be naïve to think we can live in a society without thieves, but it seems like simple justice to treat them all the same.--LV