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For the information of the foreigners who post here expressing amazement at the treatment of Paris Hilton, they should know that the American public is among the most vindictive and merciless in the world, even while groveling to its "leaders" and authority figures. It is a pack that would daunt even the Dog Whisperer.
This morality-based venom, which has been inherited from the Puritans, has been on vivid display in the case of Paris Hilton. Sheriff Baca regularly sends offenders with Paris Hilton-level convictions to serve home detention, and no one has raised a peep. It's not as if the courts aren't aware of the practice, but the judge has behaved as if he discovered all this now. Cravenly, the judge caved to the public scream and sent Paris Hilton to jail for the whole original term. And you can betcha she will serve every minute ofr it, because a million eyes are watching the clock, ready to scream " SOMEONE GOT AWAY WITH SOMETHING!"
This sterling people that is up in arms over "indecency" (witness the brouhaha over Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction") thinks nothing of keeping more than 2.2 MILLION people in jail and prison - a veritable gulag. On top of all that, many prisons are for-profit and owned by major American corporations that have a vested interest in the punishment industry. This explains why a Virginia woman was sentenced to two years and 3 months for serving beer and wine at her kids' teenage party in their home, and why pain specialist William Hurwitz got 25(!) years because some of his patients had sold their narcotics prescriptions.
Whenever a target of moral opprobrium presents itself, the American public howls for blood like wolves, and the punishment structure reflects this disposition. Mandatory sentences where 10, 20, and 30 years prison are regularly handed down, and horrifying prison conditions are the hallmarks of American "justice," which is in reality a continuation of the judicial philosophy of the Wild West. Just look at Texas, America's leader in executions.
