The city had first dibs on the refund because he owed decades of unpaid fines for small offenses.
The family had the cold strictness of many Northern Italian families: children were forced to pay a series of fines for various small offenses.
"You have to understand where China is coming from," Mrs. Nellie Fong, a member of the Legislative Council, told writer recently, "it's a country that puts people in prison for much longer terms for small offenses --theft, for example.
So the NYPD changed direction fundamentally: It actively made arrests for seemingly small offenses, such as subway-turnstile jumping.
If you cracked down on small offenses, it would send a signal to petty criminals that there is zero tolerance and this, in turn, would deter bigger crimes.
"We've had a few that had some other small offenses, but as long as it isn't the 'p word,' we're good".
"I think I know what the people of Oregon think about the possession of marijuana," Mosman said in court, adding that Bouasykeo's crimes were not small offenses.
Many of them said that they were regularly stopped, harassed, fined, and detained over small offenses, such as minor traffic violations.
As the school-to-prison pipeline system continues to be under scrutiny, schools in the Los Angeles area are working to reduce this, armed with mounting evidence that harsh punishment for small offenses at an early age does not reduce crime rates, but makes it more likely that offenders go to prison than to college.
"Do you spend your time continuing booking people in jail for small offenses, or do you try and engage them in something different than what you've been doing for a long time that isn't working?" The culture change hasn't gone unnoticed among Seattle's most vulnerable citizens.
An example for an item is: "Have you been punished hard by your father, even for trifles (small offenses)?" The German shortened version (RS-11, [ 43]) of the resilience scale by Wagnild and Young [ 15] was implemented.
