{"id":426427,"date":"2010-03-12T14:39:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T18:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/?p=36649"},"modified":"2010-03-12T14:39:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T18:39:38","slug":"reports-the-book-police-are-coming-to-get-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/426427","title":{"rendered":"Reports: The book police are coming to get you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Tencer
\nRaw Story<\/a><\/a>
\nMarch<\/a> 12, 2010<\/p>\n

A teenager in Littleton, Colorado, was arrested and spent eight hours in jail for failing to return an overdue DVD to a local library.<\/p>\n

Nineteen-year-old Aaron Henson was pulled over for speeding on Interstate 70 last month, and found himself in prison after police found a failure-to-appear warrant out for his arrest.<\/p>\n

Henson hadn\u2019t returned House of the Flying Daggers<\/em>, a Chinese DVD valued at just over $30 that he had borrowed from the library.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just shocked,\u201d Henson told ABC News<\/a><\/a>. \u201cI was like \u2018What? I\u2019ve got a what now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Henson says when he called his parents from jail, he had a hard time<\/a> convincing his mother he was telling the truth. She told him there is no such thing as \u201cbook police.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the charge against Hanson was dropped and the city now says it won\u2019t have people arrested over $30 DVDs, the incident showcases the extreme lengths some municipalities \u2014 faced with declining revenues \u2014 are going to in order to plug budget holes. The city of Littleton says it lost $7,800 last year in library materials that weren\u2019t returned.<\/p>\n

National Public Radio notes<\/a> that cities are coming up with \u201cnovel ways\u201d to raise revenues, including \u201cnew charges for responding to 911 calls to taxes and fees on sodas, bottled water, groceries and grocery bags.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABC News<\/a> reports that Littleton is by no means the only city that has taken to issuing summonses for missing library materials. \u201cSimilar arrests and warrants have been reported in Washington state, Iowa and Texas,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n

In Hanson\u2019s case, the arrest was for failure to appear, not for theft. The city of Littleton says it sent Hanson repeated notices in the mail and left phone messages for him, requesting that he return the DVD. Hanson says he failed to return it because he accidentally packed it while moving last fall. The move, he says, is why he didn\u2019t receive the library\u2019s messages.<\/p>\n

Because he never received notice of the summons, the arrest was \u201ca clear violation of his right to due process,\u201d Hanson\u2019s father, Allen Hanson, said.<\/p>\n

KMGH in Denver<\/a> reports that the arrest cost Hanson\u2019s family $460 in all \u2014 $200 for bail, $200 to get his car out of the impound lot, and $60 for court costs. The city says it will reimburse the Hansons, and Littleton Mayor Doug Clark has announced a change in the city\u2019s policy, saying that \u201cwe\u2019re not going to arrest people who don\u2019t return $30 DVDs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCities and states are going mostly after these kinds of sin taxes,\u201d Justin H. Higginbottom, an analyst with conservative research group Tax Foundation, told NPR. \u201cThey\u2019ll target<\/a> a politically unpopular industry and go after them to raise revenue. It\u2019s much easier to do that than to raise rates on sales taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

NPR\u2019s Alan Greenblatt reports that \u201cone reason sin taxes are easier to sell is that they aren\u2019t presented purely as ways to raise money. Mayors like to stress the idea that they\u2019re helping to curb bad behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Possibly Related Posts:<\/h3>\n