The Symbiotic Relationship Between Plea Bargaining and Overcriminalization
4th September 2011
Prosecutors throw the book at people in order to scare them into plea-bargaining for a lesser offense, thus increasing their conviction rate and advancing their political careers. It works, to the extent that innocent people will often plead guilty to something they didn’t do in order to avoid the catastrophic results that might ensue from the original charges in our Who Knows What A Judge Or Jury Will Do? judicial system.
Yet another way in which our political system is structurally corrupt.