Three Years for $13.50

A middle-aged married couple in Portage, Indiana has been charged with felony theft after attempting to pull the old two-for-one trick at the local theater after finishing their first movie. Off-duty police caught Lendsey and Delilha Harbin waiting for “Warm Bodies” to start after leaving another theater where they had just watched “Snitch”. Despite admitting to their crime and cooperating with the police, the married couple was booked in Porter County jail and charged with a felony.

Potentially life-ruining incidences like this happen by the hundreds every day in America, and they happen overwhelmingly to poor folks and people of color. Could you imagine the police planning a sting, arresting and booking a few white teens causing mischief or a couple of cosmopolitan young professionals looking for a thrill? Fucking Lendsey just wanted to take his old lady out to a little appetizer of Dwayne Johnson-led entertainment before finishing it off with a main course of undead romancing to set the mood. Is that so bad!? Meanwhile elites committing actual crimes are treated like royalty. They can torture people, launder drug and terrorist money, and commit multi-million dollar fraud without so much as catching a musky whiff of an ‘06 Crown Vic.

If convicted, the Harbins will face a harsh litany of restrictions that will threaten their livelihood and very freedom. For a class D felony in Indiana, they could spend up to three years in prison. They also won’t be able to exercise their right to vote while incarcerated. Even worse, a felony theft conviction would all but disqualify them from any but the most menial jobs, permanently restricting their ability to earn a middle class living.

This type of state-sanctioned barbarity exacted against the poor and downtrodden is a stain on the American dream. The judicial and penal systems reserve incredibly harsh treatment for regular Americans who step even a millimeter out of line while allowing elites to get away (sometimes literally) with murder. That’s not the rule of law, that’s not justice, but it is a day in the life of modern America.