Can't you just feel the Trickle Down yet? Cash strapped towns are making overdue books jailable

[ck4829]

Handcuffed and in the back of a police cruiser, Aaron Henson wracked his brain trying to figure out how a simple speeding violation had led to his arrest.

The answer from the Colorado State Patrol stunned him. Henson never returned the DVD he'd checked out of the Littleton library, and there was a warrant out for his arrest.

"I was just shocked," he said. "I was like 'What? I've got a what now?'"

After spending eight hours in a county jail, during which time he was fingerprinted, photographed and booked, Henson's father bailed him out. He had tried calling his mother for help, but she didn't seem to believe him, telling Henson there was no "book police."

But indeed there is. Towns across the county, frustrated with trying to replace wayward materials on a shoestring budget, have turned to issuing citations, court appearances, even reporting the offending library patron to their credit bureaus.

City spokeswoman Kelli Narde said Littleton lost $7,800 in lost library materials in 2009, including Henson's DVD. They issued 81 summonses for failure to return library materials, she said. "And 80 of them were resolved without a problem."

The offending DVD? "House of the Flying Daggers," a 2004 Chinese film valued at around $31.45 by the Littleton-Bemis Public Library -- just a little higher than the city's $30 threshold for getting the legal system involved. Henson checked it out in 2004, left it with a friend to watch and forgot about it.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/arrested-cuffed-overdue-library-books/story?id=10062565&partner=yahoo

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. los angeles library will use a collection agency

[Berry Cool]

2. Phew, glad I returned my overdue books yesterday.

Of course, I still owe a few hundred dollars in back taxes, but they say they won't jail me over that.

[FarCenter]

3. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime

[closeupready]

4. Yet, we point and laugh at Dubai throwing delinquent debtors in prison.

Shows you how far this country has sunk.