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Posted: 11/13/02

Evelyn Puffer

No easy answers

One of the things that annoys me is when people rant about a problem yet offer no solution. That's where I find myself today.

Anyone who has read more than a few of my columns knows I firmly believe there will always be a segment of our society that will need some level of assistance from the rest of us. Platitudes about "just get a job" or "let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps" are meaningless when the "they" being referred to have neither the ability to do the one nor the boots to do the other.

I struggle here as I try to avoid the terms "worthy" or "unworthy." That's not how we make decisions in America. Yet, I see in our own community a daily misuse of our generosity by people for whom it was never meant and with an apparent sense of entitlement.

Nowhere can it be better demonstrated than in the local drug culture.

This country has a public defender system designed to ensure that the legal rights of indigent defendants are protected and in this county I've witnessed a high level of professionalism in serving those clients as well as dedication to the system's underlying principle. It is also a system traditionally overloaded with clients and with new defendants dropped on attorneys at a moment's notice.

Every month I'm approached by a local person struggling with a legal problem in a civil matter who doesn't qualify for Legal Aid, a program that seems to be fair game whenever the federal government trims its budget, nor do they have the funds for a private attorney. Law firms are a business and they don't stay in business by giving away their services even though most do participate in some level of donated representation. There is no encouragement I can give these callers other than to provide a listening post.

That brings me back to my growing frustration as I cover the court system and see up to six defendants at a time in methamphetamine manufacturing cases pick up their forms to receive assistance from the Public Defenders' Office. Because the defendants in these new cases are starting to come in groups, they can't each be represented by the same attorney because of a conflict of interest. Then the call goes out for either more attorneys through the public defender system or, when not enough are available, the hiring of private attorneys on a contract basis.

As each defendant fills out and submits their form, raising their right hand to swear they have no or insufficient income to secure their own legal defense, I wonder if anyone else is thinking about the tremendous amount of cash and drugs exchanging hands every night in Isanti County and what a lucrative business these defendants are in.

This may well be one of the best jokes pulled on our society.

Especially when the "indigent" people post the large amounts of bail and have several cases pending in multiple counties at the same time.

There is some retribution. Large amounts of cash and vehicles used in commission of a crime are eventually forfeited to the county. The move is now on to seize real estate as well.

It's a bizarre dance with a huge price tag in both costs to society and in the human lives these drug manufacturers and dealers affect.

We appear to have a subculture in our community controlling a substantial, tax-free, underground economy for which they frequently don't have to account, as well as a group of people for whom being arrested on a regular basis is the norm.

When they can't pay their rent because they've spent their money on drugs or ingredients to make them, they ask for assistance from our established resources. When they run out of money for food for their children because they've spent it elsewhere, they turn to resources intended for those who are truly struggling to make ends meet.

This situation may simply be the price we have to pay for the humanitarian society for which we are known in this country. Yet I doubt that even the scholars who noted that "the poor will always be with us" envisioned this new "poor" that's poor only on paper and until the next batch is cooked or shipment arrives.