why is it the rich go free and the poor go to jail?
87199
Its all about money. Money pays for better lawyers, brides (in the form of donations) and shows that they are an asset to the community (or so they say).
885234
you have a great point. you could consider anyone in the middle class(which is disappearing) a slave b/c the national cost of living is exceeding the value of our printed money. everyone knows that the middle/lower class works for the upper class to get rich, history hasn't changed that and i don't think anything will.
592606
Why?  Because they can.  How is it that they can get away with it?  The rich and powerful get away with sending impoverished people to fight wars to defend their (the rich and powerful's) interests because there is a dynamic in place that innoculates them against any criticism.  The social contract that makes this happen goes something like this:\n\n- The rich and powerful have the means to persuade the populace that a war is warranted.  They have the money and the influence to manipulate the media into repeating talking points to convince people that the enemy is terribly dangerous.\n\n- The rich and powerful engage in shameless adulation by means of celebrating the "patriotism" of the lower classes.  Those who dare criticize the rich and powerful proponents of sending poor teenagers to fight wars are easily dismissed as unpatriotic, elitist, out of touch, and most importantly, unsupportive of the lower class people fighting the war.  This device works as the glue that keeps poor people feeling as though the manipulative leaders who send their children to war are the ones who truly care for them.
1163086
History shows when you destroy the middle class the economy and state will fall as well.  This is why the roman empire fell.  There can not be black and white meaning poor and rich.  Look at the depression.
1080856
Under this administration the rich get richer and the middle class and poor get left out.
44556
Because the government can't pay for anything themselves so they tax innocent people to get the money they need so they can have more power (money=power)
704641
Taxpayers pay for jail, but jail has repercussions beyond the legal sense.  If you hold a job, most places of employment automatically terminate arraigned citizens.  Loans and bank accounts requiring credit often default when you are found guilty of a felony crime.  And security firms report on your background check that jail time has been spent, affecting future jobs, taxes, financial decisions on your behalf, housing and in some states marriage.\n\nNot to mention that society is taking time away from your life.  You are paying in time that could be used for much better things.  And you will never get it back.\n\nThis 'opportunity cost' is what is being referred to as owing Society.  If you have a spouse or kids, you can't be in their life.  You can't be there for your family, your friends, or loved ones.  You lose out on business decisions if you run a business, or decisions on your stocks if you play the market.  You can't experience freedom.\n\nAnd freedom isn't being able to do what you want to do, but being able to do what you must do.  People have a lot to take care of in their lives.\n\n(Note to the answerer above: There are intelligent people who commit crimes, too.  "There is no better a measure of a society than the condition of it's inmates." - Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Criminals aren't a type of people.  Being a criminal is a status, just not a pleasant or desirable one.  Too many people have forgotten that in this world.)
1172750
I'd rather help the poor, because generally, the rich tend to be corrupted by their wealth(it's happens easily, even to the best of us.)The poor, by default, tend to know what REALLY matters in life.
1031036
I bet if you took a couple of starving ppl and sat them on the greedy person's doorstep, a lot of the greedy ones would shape up in a hurry. (At least temporarily.) They can get away with it now because the starving ones are total strangers and probably live far away. I guess they figure out of sight, out of mind. And the rich have NO freakin clue what it's like to be poor.
774079
Nope, never had that happen. Poor people tend to stay poor. Rich people tend to be stingy!
905159
Money!  Thats it.  Plain and simple.  The federal government aquires and distributes insane amounts of money for and from this so called "war on drugs"   What i mean is, the vast majority of prison inmates are booked due to drug related offences.  For each inmate booked the prison is alotted a certain amount of revenue.  Prisons are run by the state, therefore the state ultimatly ends up with this money.  Polititians find numerous ways to skim off the top as well as the high end execs.  Prisons are only one major source of benifiting from this mass amount of revenue.  In short a crime filled, chaotic country makes more cash than one such as amsterdam.
646965
To a certain extent, yes. No one really has freedom, money is power. If you aren't rich, then you have none.
314989
Unfortunately the poor are usually less educated than the upper class(not  saying all upper class's are smarter than the poor but) people tend to live by example, if the parents are poor and they are raised poor they just seem to find it easier to follow than to fight.
309791
There are a number of reasons. The riches are exploiting the poor. In the industries the workers are not getting their remuneration according to the labor they provide there. The rich countries are exploiting the developing counties. Corruption is another reason. The person who has power in hand earns money through corruption and that money belongs to the people of the country. If the money is properly distributed among the people there can not be any poverty in the world.
1130563
We have created a value out of possession.  There is nothing great about being rich...  Real Richie's are always made through some swindle breaching the system getting things out of turn.  Individuals who really work hard for a better life are few and do not normally make it among the really rich.\n\nRichies is largely to do with inheritance, possessing social capital, use of cunning and sometimes being plain lucky.\n\nWhile poverty is to do with circusmtances.  While there may be some druggies who may refuse to work for their living, greatest number of the poor in the world are engaged in an exploitative relationship... a form of subsistence slavery out of which there is no escape.  Its grossly unfair to term half of the world population which is surviving under impossible conditions as lazy and less dignified than those who make it easy because of inherited privilege and then claim to be smart.
79882
Because Rich people always want everything and can just go out and buy it, no having to question how it will effect them, and poor people always appreciate what they have because they have to work so hard to get it. I know I was happier when I was a single mom making squat. Now it just seems that I have $$ and can have more things easier and it doesn't seem to be as much a a thrill to get things.
808316
Why doesn't your rich neighbor give you money....just because...??\nWhy doesn't the government take from those according to their ability and give to those according to their need? The answer is because that is communism.