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Graffiti as organized crime?

On the House floor today, Rep. Joe Moody had a perfectly reasonable bill that added people conspiring in prison and jail escapes under the organized crime statute. But the freshman Democrat accepted a "friendly" amendment from Rep. Dwayne Bohac to define graffiti offenses, of all things, as "organized crime" if committed by two or more people in combination.Bohac said he wants to target criminal street gangs, but as written the amendment would allow prosecution of any three high-school kids who spray paint an underpass as "organized crime," enhancing Class A misdemeanor graffiti offenses to a third degree felony.Overkill, much?If your teenager was caught with two friends writing their names on a wall, would you think it's justified to prosecute them under the same laws created to go after the mafia?What are these people thinking? Are they thinking at all?continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).