Crime and Punishment

     A groundbreaking new sentencing guideline for carjacking may soon be considered in Polk County.  You want to steal a car?  Be our guest.  There is one stipulation, however...the sentence for this crime is to be driven by a Federal Marshall from Pensacola to Key West with a toddler, a preschooler, and a CD of nursery rhymes in a Ford Fiesta.

     First time, non-violent offenders will be given a standard set of children who have been given copious amounts of liquids beforehand to assure numerous shrieks of "I gotta pee!", but only in areas where no restrooms are available for miles.  Both children will have been prepped by being extremely well-rested but ravenously hungry.  The sentence will require gas station stops at least every fifty miles for high sugar drinks and chocolately, smeary candy bars, with at least one slushy-type drink being spilled the moment it has been paid for.  Repeat offenders will be provided with a toddler suffering from both a nasty cold and a stomach virus, complete with explosive diarrhea.

     The aspect of the sentence which will be most effective in discouraging future crimes is the intensive, repetitive nature of the toddler's communication.  Very small children have endless persistence and can crush the will and sanity of even the most hardened career criminal.  The constant barrage of screeches..."MINE! MINE!"  "All done!  All done!  All done!"  "Out! Out! OUT!!" can only be drowned out by the relentlessly cheerful perkiness of the nursery rhyme CD.  The choice between the ear-splitting shrieks and enduring one more rabid rendition of "Hickory Dickory Dock" is like being asked to choose between waterboarding and electric shock.

     By the time the thief reaches Tallahassee, he will be begging to be sent to a nice, quiet jail cell.  By Jacksonville his hair will be full of Goldfish crackers and the Slurpee that someone "accidentally" spilled down his back.  I-95 South will be nothing but a redundant stretch of green and brown.  A-1A must be avoided for the protection of the torturers (i.e. children) lest the convicted be driven completely mad, overtake the driver and attempt to drive the Fiesta into the ocean.

   Once the vehicle crosses the Seven Mile Bridge and is met by the Department of Corrections at the Southernmost Point, the carjacker must generally be extricated from a fetal position on the floor of the car.  With shouts of "BYE BYE! BYE BYE!" from the sugar-crazed children, he runs frantically for the safety of the bus filled with rapists and murderers awaiting transport to prison.

     This sentence should not be considered a punishment, but a form of rehabilitation.  Test subjects showed a deep-seated fear of not only anyone under five feet tall, but of all vehicles in general.  It is expected that rates of car theft will fall dramatically, and that theft of cars occupied by children under the age of twelve will be nonexistent.

     Polk County is also considering a pilot program to require that all convicted drug dealers be accompanied by a two year old twenty four hours per day, based on the theory that it is impossible to participate in the sale of narcotics with a small, version of a piranha screaming "MINE!! MINE!!" throughout the transaction.