I think I cost the state of Virginia thousands of dollars

[Garion_55]

Well more to the point I believe that Virginia cost themselves thousands of dollars.

I posted recently that i was pulled over by the police and they searched my car and confiscated 1/2 a joint and wrote me up for it.


I had to pay a $140 fine for it and they took my $6 worth of weed away from me. So that stop cost me 150 bucks. What did it cost the state though? i started running the numbers in my head.

Consider the following costs to taxpayers. My traffic stop took 30 minutes. It involved four to seven officers, three police vehicles and a K-9. Add in the time an officer spends on paperwork back at the station. I took up approximately 10 minutes of court time in front of the judge, 2 clerks, a district attorney and a bailiff. Add in the time it took for them to process the paperwork in this case.Twenty minutes with the next lady who processed my fine. Twenty minutes with the nice lady with the gun who took my fingerprints. Thirty minutes with the lady who set up the conditions of my restricted license. One hour with my probation officer and finally 30 minutes with the clerk at the DMV. Up till now it was just costing the city to bring this case before a judge but because a DMV clerk now needs to be involved, everyone else in the general population behind me in line is going to have to wait longer to get back to their days so in a sense, its costing them now too.

My guess is that when you add it all together it must cost taxpayers a few thousand dollars worth of salaries, computer time, paperwork, processing time and electricity to prosecute a citizen for $6 worth of pot.

yeah thats worth it

[FSogol]

1. Um. They didn't hire all of those people just to pull you over.

There were getting paid whether you broke the law or not. Next time, smoke your entire joint and don't save half to get caught with.

[Garion_55]

2. right but

those resources were wasted on my case because of $6 worth of weed when they instead should have been being used to track down and prosecute actual bad guys.

[FSogol]

3. Are you expecting the war on drugs to make sense?

[MineralMan]

4. Lucky that you were in a state that just treats minor

possession with a small fine.

[Garion_55]

5. yeah i guess you are right.

thats kinda my main point is cost vs benefit.

what is the benefit of spending maybe 2 thousand dollars worth of resources to prosecute someone for 6 bucks worth of weed and a 150 dollar fine? if i had been fined 2 grand then at least that helps recover some of the costs to the state.

[MineralMan]

6. You can't expect it to make sense. Such things never do.

Just hide your roaches better next time.

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. We should all just turn ourselves in en masse. That'd gum up the system.

[Garion_55]

9. i thought about that lol

if thousands of people voluntarily get cited for half a joint and flood the system and tie it up bad, maybe the state will finally pay attention to how stupid this is.

[Blue_Tires]

8. Which city/county?