by Duane Gundrum

Created on: August 25, 2007

What's interesting about Nicole Richie's time in jail and the current crop of entertainers being imprisoned is not that they are getting away with anything different, but that they are actually being held to pretty much the same standards as everyone else. And believe it or not, that is actually the problem. Not because they are being held to the same standards but because the attention on such celebrities is bringing out the reality of just what those standards are.

It used to be in the past that if someone was brought into the criminal justice system for a non-violent action, such as drunk driving, drug usage while driving or any other such types of misdemeanor activity, the law really did not make a big issue out of it unless it was a third or later offense, and sometimes it still required physically injuring another party to cause any real ramifications.

Now, with celebrities being drawn into the criminal system for these types of behaviors, people are starting to see a two-step process that is opening eyes that have been kept closed because people generally do not care what happens to others in the criminal justice system unless they are personally involved somehow through relatives or personal victimization. When Richie is given a small sentence, much like anyone else would receive due to overcrowding of our jail system, people first feel outrage because a celebrity apparently received different punishment than the rest of us. But then when they discover that this punishment is almost identical to what the rest of us receive, they show outrage because they start to discover how often people get away with everything short of murder.

People do not like having their world vision changed on them. And I honestly think that is going to be the lesson learned from these celebrity brushes with the criminal justice system. Authorities are not going to make the lives of celebrities worse than anyone else's, but the attention does bring the magnifying glass on what does happen in the average case, and people are now only starting to wake up to that reality. It is somewhat interesting that it took a reality show star to start to wake people up to reality, but sometimes logic needs a bit of nudge to be seen for what it is in the bigger picture.

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