Six Questions for Dale C. Carson on Staying Off the “Electronic Plantation”

Dale C. Carson, a former FBI agent and now a criminal defense lawyer in Jacksonville, Florida, authored the new book, Arrest-Proof Yourself. Funny and very politically incorrect, the book is a how-to guide for staying out of jail—which Carson says should be of concern not only to career criminals but to “people with lapses in judgment, bad manners, a taste for marijuana, and no knowledge of how the criminal justice system operates.” Being arrested might not necessarily lead to a prison stretch, but it will lead to permanent placement in the “electronic plantation,” the term Carson uses to describe the growing web of federal and state criminal databases. Once you're on the plantation, he says, you can look forward to a lifetime of low-wage jobs and trouble with authorities. In the old days, Carson writes, “All anyone had to do to escape youthful indiscretions was blow town. Nowadays, that doesn't work. Once you're in the 'puter, my friend, you're there for life.” I recently spoke by phone with Carson about the many pearls of wisdom contained in his new book.

1. You suggest in Arrest-Proof Yourself that it's a lot easier to get arrested than most people would imagine. Why?

Painters paint, firemen put out fires, and cops put people in jail. Every month you and your employer tally up the number of arrests you made. That's how you get rated. If you make seven arrests and someone else makes five, who's the better cop? That gives a police officer an incentive to arrest as many people as possible. There were 70,000 arrests in Duval County, Florida, between 2003 and 2004—that's about 7 percent of the population. About 10 percent of the people arrested were released within 21 days. That means that you have about 7,000 people who were never prosecuted and should never have seen the inside of a squad car, but now they have an arrest record.

In the book, you say it's not just cops, but various groups of people and institutions that have a stake in everything from pulling you over in your car to throwing you in jail. How does that play into the arrest epidemic?

There's a system of constant surveillance that hangs over our communities—it's called the traffic stop. Duval County issued about 280,000 tickets last year, and they can cost $158 each. Those tickets raise a lot of money for the state but they rarely have anything to do with public safety or getting a bad driver off the street. The state makes a huge amount of money by arresting and jailing people, and there's a lot of people whose jobs revolve around the system—clerks, probation officers, prison guards, the list goes on and on and on. It's a cancer that has grown across the system.

How do you end up being arrested if you aren't guilty of any crime or even of any serious bad behavior?

Let's say your girlfriend tells the cops that you threatened her. You get stopped and thrown in jail. You say she's lying and they tell you to tell it to the judge. Even if it's a false charge, your prints are going to be sent to Washington and now you're in the electronic plantation. Any time you get stopped, the cop is going to see that you were once charged and jailed.

Sure, in that case the charge was false—but the cops couldn't have known that from the outset. Give me other examples of how people who have no business being in jail can end up there.

Imagine there's some poor guy in the rural south who needs to drive to work because the public transportation system is so bad. He gets a traffic ticket for $158, which is about what he makes in a week. Meanwhile, his wife is sick and they already have doctor bills they can't pay. So he calls to set a court date to deal with the ticket, because that pushes it out. But he misses the court date—maybe he just forgets about it, maybe he moved and forgot to update his mailing address so he never got the notice in the mail. He hasn't really done anything wrong but now he may end up getting his license suspended, and he still needs to drive to get to work. If you get stopped three times driving on a suspended license it's a felony with a maximum five-year penalty. Here's another example. A lot of women are charged with writing bad checks. That's a civil issue and there may have been no ill intent—she didn't realize how little money was in the account, maybe her kid was sick and she didn't have time to make a deposit. If she gets pulled over for a minor traffic infraction and the cop sees a warrant for a bad check, do you think she's going to see the inside of a squad car? Hell, yes, she is, and then she's going to be permanently in the electronic plantation.

Let's say the police stop me, for whatever reason, and I know I haven't done anything wrong. What's wrong with pushing back in that situation?

When you get stopped by a cop, you have a relationship whether you like it or not and you need interpersonal skills. As an American, you shouldn't have to be overly polite to the police, but victory in this case is not ending up in the back of a squad car. People like people who are like them, so you want to establish commonality. You want to signal that you acknowledge you may be in the wrong and desire to cooperate, even if you're not guilty. Above all use manners and be pleasant. Never lie and never create an antagonistic relationship with a cop—take three deep breaths if you are getting angry. This may be hard to do but it's essential. You do not want to end up getting fingerprinted and going to jail, because if that happens you are in the system and you are in permanently.

Has this whole problem been exacerbated by the Bush Administration and legislation like the Patriot Act?

We as a population are increasingly going to be screened and vetted by the government. The Patriot Act turned up the heat, but this really isn't a partisan issue. I'm not sure when the pot really started boiling, but it's been boiling under both Democratic and Republican administrations. There is a real balancing act—law enforcement needs to protect citizens from real threats. There are zealots out there and that's a frightening thing for all of us. September 11 liberalized the government's ability to apply these sorts of surveillance and monitoring resources against the population, and with fewer judicial restrictions. Even if it's a necessary intrusion, some of the more restrictive tools should be withdrawn at some point. The problem is that once you turn up the heat, it becomes very hard to turn it back down.

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