cont.
transactions over human reality, and procedural efficiency over truth.

What follows is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern.

System Blindness: When Records Erase Reality

In my own experience, I had already served jail time for a charge. Years later, a warrant resurfaced, and at that point I paid a bond while I was not incarcerated.

When the case returned to court, the system could only see that a bond had been paid — not that time had already been served.

Because of this, the charges were not dismissed, even though they should have been. Instead, probation and unsupervised probation were offered — an illogical outcome for something already paid for with incarceration. I was effectively asked to accept additional punishment for an offense the system itself had already processed.

More disturbing still, the burden was placed on me to prove that I had been jailed, as though the justice system does not retain its own records. (cont)