![]() Here, the statute at issue over-criminalizes what ought to be purely a civil offense.Īs to over-penalization, the state and local governments of Michigan are far too willing to jail their citizens at astounding cost. This touches on two major trends: over-criminalization, or the criminalizing of offenses which ought to be civil offenses or not an offense at all and over-penalization, or the willingness to apply the brunt of criminal statutes’ sentencing provisions where traditional prosecutorial discretion would deem it inappropriate. Over-criminalization is an increasing problem Animal cruelty is a criminal matter clerical errors are civil concerns. Indeed, a prison sentence for a person who fails to renew any licenses make little sense in the first place : Unless there’s actually irresponsible ownership-which imperfect compliance with bureaucratic regulations does not denote-there’s no harm. #Ottawa county dog license renewal license#Michigan penalizes the failure to obtain a dog license with a $100 fine, which is reasonable as far as these things go- and the potential of 90 days in jail, which makes no sense given the lightness of the maximum fine. Her daughter waited in the car for three hours while she was held. Instead of simply accepting that and wiping out the arrest warrant, or issuing a fine for tardiness, the authorities arrested, frisked, fingerprinted, and detained Rehr with a misdemeanor charge. She then went to the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office to show them that she had her renewed license and was now in compliance with the law. But with the end of the school year and my job, it just totally got put on the back burner.” She renewed her license four days before county officials sent her a letter alerting her that an arrest warrant had been issued. ![]() Rehr, in her own words, had “every intention of taking care of it. It was a careless error that, 26 days later, she corrected. Becky Rehr forgot to renew her dog license. ![]()
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