The greatest misconception in America today is that you have to be a bad person to go to prison. If I had a nickel for every client and potential client that I have met, who has exclaimed “I am not a bad person” I would be a very rich man today. By bad they often mean evil, sinister, corrupt, and devoid of all empathy for other human beings. Only recently have I figured out why clients uniformly proclaim their disassociation from this nefarious group of ubiquitous bad people. There are often two different rationales, depending upon the type of charge and the plea offer from the prosecutor.
First, there are the folks that are facing prison sentences. They deny they are bad people because they mistakenly believe that the prosecutor would only recommend a prison sentence to a bad person. The thought goes something like this:
The prosecutor, being a reasonable and intelligent person, must know that prison is a scary, dangerous and violent place where no thoughtful and caring human being would ever be able to survive. The prosecutor, knowing the dangers of such a place, would never recommend that a good, thoughtful, Christian/Buddhist/Jewish/other person like myself should live in such a place for an extended period of time – a place where surely my humanity and compassion will make me a target and victim. So, the prosecutor must not know that I am a good person. I need to reemphasize, even to the point of contacting the prosecutor while I am represented by counsel, that I am a good person, or at a minimum “I am not a bad person.”
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