You still can't look at the crimes without the context. If someone burgles a store at gunpoint, its a pretty serious crime, but if they're just some poor shmuck thinking they found a way to get an easy up(lets say he was black), as opposed to a gang member(lets say he's white) who may or may not also be the suspect in a few other things, is quite unrepentant and otherwise a disaster to their community, the leniancy of the court is going to be different.
Also often in cases, they'll drop other charges if the person pleads guilty to a lesser charge which they take the max time for, so in cases where the person also did a lot of vandalizing, terrorizing, etc, they may have bargained to only take the threatening with a deadly weapon and theft charges and got the max sentence where someone who only walked in and pointed a gun may end up with that charge but be able to bargain it down to a lesser sentence.
What we area dealing with is a cultural issue of certain areas of poverty that the larger population has turned their shoulder to.
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Date: 22/5/10 19:11 (UTC)Also often in cases, they'll drop other charges if the person pleads guilty to a lesser charge which they take the max time for, so in cases where the person also did a lot of vandalizing, terrorizing, etc, they may have bargained to only take the threatening with a deadly weapon and theft charges and got the max sentence where someone who only walked in and pointed a gun may end up with that charge but be able to bargain it down to a lesser sentence.
What we area dealing with is a cultural issue of certain areas of poverty that the larger population has turned their shoulder to.