Sutherland Humbled by Time in Jail

We make a lot of fun of celebrities driving under the influence, being On Dope, and so forth, but The Rundown is not obtuse. Yes, drinking and driving is a serious thing; yes, getting On and Off Dope is a serious matter; no, celebrities are not above the law. Part of why we poke so much fun of them when it comes to these things should be fairly obvious: they're freaking rich and famous and they get busted for driving drunk!? That's stupid! There's no excuse for it!

There is no excuse for you or me to get busted for driving drunk - it's bad, mmkay? - but it's understandable: things happen. The truth is that breathalizers will register you as drunk if you have had as little as a single glass of wine within the past so-many minutes. Still, if you make more money in a month than most people do in a year, you're a frigging moron for driving anywhere: get a damned driver! All that aside, as I said, things happen. And so it was that Kiefer Sutherland found himself arrested - yet again - for DUI sometime back, resulting in a 48-day stint in the county jail.

In a new interview, Sutherland discusses his time behind bars and expresses his regret.

But the real reason I am writing this is to discuss the larger matter of Kiefer Sutherland being sentenced to a public facility alongside rapists, murderers, and other violent offenders. While the modern point of imprisonment has been corrupted into scaring offenders straight, imprisonment should be considered a punishment in and of itself and the entire concept of "scaring people straight" should be condemned as cruel and unusual.

The truth is that incarceration should be about taking away a citizen's rights and freedom - which is a punishment! - not putting them into a corrupt system filled with abuses, abusive officers, and violent inmates. The "got what they deserved" adage - the current American justification, forwarded by a generation of self-absorbed narcissists who have left the world in one of the sorriest states in Man's short existence - means that, should they survive, maybe they "learned their lesson." But non-violent offenders are at a distinct disadvantage when locked-up alongside violent ones: they are, you know, non-violent people. Literally everything our parents and their parents stood for is wrong - all of it - and it is time we turn our backs on their ways and ideologies and work toward a better world.

I continue to push for American legal reform across the boards (judicial, penal - I mean, the system is broken, it does not work), but this very basic precept needs to be adopted immediately. While the country faces prison overcrowding to the extent that experts call it "pandemic," the idea that non-violent offenders should be imprisoned at all is questionable, but to jail them with truly antisocial, violent offenders is ludicrous! Further, it is socially irresponsible, morally reprehensible, and actually a threat to the outside population at-large.

The problem here is that Sutherland is a repeat offender and he's rich. He really did need to be "taught a lesson" and fining him wouldn't phase him. The issue is that Sutherland - and others like him - are not violent offenders, are not going to try to escape, and do not need to be incarcerated alongside violent and dangerous people! If the offending judge really wanted to "teach him a lesson," it would have been far more effective to force him into some sort of humiliating (not cruelly so) PSA - a billboard and TV campaign with his mugshot and so forth promenaded for all to see - or community service in a way that makes it a public point of shame (again, not overly so).

Sutherland's case aside, more of these celebrities need to stand-up to a system that is bullying all of us. Sue these people for discrimination, defamation of character - whatever you can get on them! - after all, they are using your fame against you to "set an example" for others and that is a clear and unjustifiable abuse of the legal system

© C Harris Lynn, 2008