Jumping To Conclusions

A judge came up with a creative sentence for an individual convicted of the horrible crime of violating neo-Prohibition:

A Fishers mother must serve at least two days in jail and write a 20-page research paper as part of a sentence imposed today in connection with an underage drinking party at her home last year.

[...]

"It's a fair sentence," said Deputy Prosecutor Matthew Gernand. "Underage drinking is a large problem. It becomes a larger problem when you have parents starting to condone that activity, and then providing alcohol for the minors.

"I think the sentence serves as a good message to the community that parents should not be hosting parties and allowing their kids to drink."

Sturtevant also ordered the woman to write a 20-page research paper on the impact of underage drinking, serve 60 days of home detention with electronic monitoring and 180 days of probation, pay $184, and perform 50 hours of community service work.

"Part of the paper is she is going to have to provide statistics on underage drinking, and how it's a harm," said Gernand. "It's not to be an opinion paper. It's to be a factual paper, with statistics."

So she can have any opinion she wants, as long as it's the correct one, because then it's a fact. So what happens if she "provides statistics on underage drinking" and shows how it isn't a harm? Does the judge unsuspend her suspended sentence and send her to prison? After all, it appears that her real crime was not serving the alcohol, but "condoning" underage drinking. Wouldn't want people to get the wrong ideas, after all.

Incidentally, the party was in honor of her son, who is entering the military. Maybe he'll be sent to go fight in the Middle East -- where they also punish people for the "crime" of serving alcohol.