I realize it's fun to paint lawyers with the same brush, but let's be clear here: prosecutors are the ones gunning after constant guilty convictions, and the Roberts Supreme Court has stripped even the most basic ways to challenge their abuses.
Right...they sure are, and I know from direct experience.
However, paid defense lawyers sure get a nice dividend from these recidivists.
Cops get the jobs, status, and power they seek from arresting them.
The prison industrial complex owes it's entire business model to them (as first-timers rarely get state prison time), and the last time I checked, DOC was the largest state budget item for CA and FL (I'll admit to maybe being a little off here)
Agreed, the fact that we even talk about a "business model" for incarceration is horrific. Indeed much of NY state is economically dependent on corrections, it's ugly.
Still, lawyers aren't getting rich defending the masses of underprivileged felons filling our prisons. Defending these folks is a pretty honorable task.
Read Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" for cite after cite. My copy is lent out to a friend and the internet isn't bringing up specific cases. Excellent, irrefutable and seriously depressing book.
