By Logan Andrew | FreeWire
In Crawford County, we like to pretend the law is a straight line. We tell ourselves that if you do the crime, you do the time. But if you’ve been paying attention to the high-profile theft cases currently rotting under the heat lamps of our local courthouse—and the whispered judicial ambitions of those in power—you know that the line is actually a ladder.
In this late-stage capitalist hellscape, some people are born at the top, while others have the ladder kicked out from under them before they can even reach the first rung.
The Social Engineering of Justice
We need to talk about the bench. It is the most sensitive seat in the county because it is the seat that decides the future of our families. It is where the interconnectedness of our social circles is weaponized. When a prosecutor—one whose tenure has been troubling, to say the least—moves toward that bench after overseeing no-contest plea deals for politically connected defendants, what does justice look like for the unworthy?
We’ve seen this script before. We have seen domestic victims denied the justice they deserve because their family’s political status makes them too relevant to rock the boat. We don’t rock the boat when the boat belongs to the party. Instead, we sweep the corruption under the rug of a specific social class and call it discretion.
When justice picks and chooses winners based on perceived social virtues, it isn’t law; it’s social engineering. It’s deciding which one-year-old grows up fatherless because their dad stole a PlayStation, and which pillar of the community gets to keep their freedom after admitting to siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from a vulnerable victim.
The Baby-Proofed System
The real tragedy is that there are people in our system capable of nuance and integrity—public servants who actually want to do the right thing—but they are forced to operate in a landscape that has been baby-proofed to protect the powerful. We’ve created a world where the cracks never get addressed because addressing them would mean admitting that Blind Lady Justice is currently taking bribes in the shadows of a plea deal.
It’s about money. It’s about power. It’s about ensuring that the next generation can’t do what the current elite did. It’s about climbing that social ladder, achieving the American Dream, and then burning the bridge behind you.
Bucyrus: The Under-the-Radar Corrupt
They always call Marion Little Chicago, but don’t forget that Al Capone partied here in Bucyrus, too. He didn’t just pass through; he found a home in our speakeasies and our silence. We’ve been just as corrupt for the last 100 years, but because Marion and Mansfield have the crime that gets the headlines, Bucyrus is allowed to fly under the radar.
We aren’t as bad as Upper Sandusky when it comes to the professional art of sweeping bad news under the rug, but we do our best. We pretend these politicians will do the right thing when no one is watching, but that is a fairy tale we have to stop believing.
The Referendum
This Thursday, the sentencing of an unremorseful thief isn’t just about one case. It is a referendum on the manual overdrive we are all forced to live in. We are tired of the mental gymnastics required to believe that those with judicial ambitions will do the right thing once they wear the robe.
We are watching.
If a defendant walks because of their social standing, you are telling every fatherless kid in this county that the law doesn’t exist for them—it only exists against them. You are telling us that the excuses you make are the only language you speak.
We’re broken, we’re temporary, and we’re tired of the fairy tales. Either put on the big boy pants or admit the system is just a tool for the annihilation of the poor.
About The Author
