Is it me or is the world going crazy?
I have a lot of respect for the police and the criminal justice system, they do a tough job and tend to get tarnished by the criminal actions of a small minority of ruffians in their ranks that get a lot of the attention.
In modern times a lot of organisations are facing cuts so one would assume that law enforcement agencies and departments would be ensuring that they maximise their efforts in dealing with real crime.
In a write up on Ars Technica today they describe the case of Mariza Ruelas, a single mother who has been prosecuted as part of an undercover operation to crackdown on people selling food on Facebook without the appropriate licenses in California.
She sold $12 worth of a food called ceviche which is a Central/South American dish containing cured (and hence raw) fish. This is apparently prohibited without a license.
Excerpt from the article:
By December 2015, Sgt. Herrera decided to go after six different women, chosen at random from 209 Food Spot. One of those women was Mariza Ruelas, a 37-year-old single mother of six children. Posing as Paine, Herrera went to Ruelas’ house, handed over $12, and walked away with 32oz of ceviche. (He did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.)
Six months later, in June 2016, Ruelas and five other women received a court summons for their arraignment to face state-level misdemeanor criminal charges for operating a food facility without a valid permit and engaging in business without a permit to sell. None of them were amongst those who had received prior warnings from the EHD.
I fully understand the need for food safety and shutting people down if they are giving people food poising, but in this case the actual motivation for the prosecution is purely the fact that she does not have the right licenses.
She is not accused of making anyone ill.
Further the prosecutors have been pushing her to make a plea deal which she has thus far refused as she is afraid of the potential effect a criminal record could have on her employment prospects. (It seems that several other women have been charged as part of the same case and they have already given in to pressure to make a plea deal.)
I don't blame her for sticking to her guns:
Your tax dollars at work
Since when is not having a permit a reason to get a criminal record? Further is this a good use of public and police resources? Should this not be a matter of civil rather than criminal law?
I thought undercover work was for catching terrorists and mobsters not cracking down on housewives providing people with food?
This is something that at the very worst requires a fine or some other kind of civil sanction. Involving the whole criminal justice system seems like complete insanity AND a waste of money to me. - Not to mention the unfairness of criminalising someone over something so inappropriate.
Maybe I am naive but I have not thus far heard of Environmental Health Departments (EHD) and law enforcement teaming up in this way before.
What do you think?
Have you heard anything like this before? Am I overreacting? Is Mr Pibb actually the same as Dr Pepper in a Jekyll and Hyde sort of way? Was Garfield not actually as funny as I thought when I was a child?
Have your say in the comments.
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