Brutal logic of an inhuman system

Is there a link between material conditions and likelihood of breaking the law. Decents don't like to think so - we are born evil or good, we have free choice, we are rational beings and all that two dimensional cartoon thinking - the real insights come from within the system itself. For it is here, really, that all questions concerning freedom and determinacy begin and end. The lower orders are bound to break the law at some point, the upper class judges are, likewise, destined to convict them.

" And one leading academic told me: "We are likely to see rates of imprisonment rise as unemployment rises. "Courts tend to favour custodial sentences because unemployment [sic] people will have more free time and therefore be more inclined to commit further offences."

(Presumably, the paper meant to say "unemployed" people). So, if you commit a crime and you have a job, you have a fairish chance of escaping jail. If you're unemployed, then your freedom from wrok is held against you. The idea that the more free time you have 'inclines' you to commit crime is an academic sleight of hand. These academics are the state's jokers in suits. This 'leading (leading!) academic's interpretation simply leaves the courts prejudice unexamined. Faced with an upper class lounger abouter caught with his knob in the jam - the courts would take his fortune into account, be duly influenced by his lizardy lawyer and dismiss the case.

(Pure speculation on my part, of course, but from years of experience - come on are you seriously doubting it?). The courts do not assess someone's free time and multiply it by the nature of the offence and divide by six. They give their anti-poor prejudices free reign.

The fear this article expresses is that the looming slump will cause people to act more 'dishonestly' - there will be more robberies, bulgalries and heists and so on. Of course, the people who write about these developments won't be affected. The leading academics, judges and journalists will be safely cocooned in their gated communities enjoying their free time to be all that concerned.

And, obviously, all around us, every day, in the ether that transmits the digital information, deep within the cables that send the billion billions of ones and noughts of computer money language back and forth and the unseen wavelengths of profit and loss that speed across contients - the biggest 'dishonesty' crime of them all - described as a bailout then excised from the media domain - comes to save us all.