Neptunus Lex

This day your humble scribe was required and desired to khaki back up and head down to the former, for to get poked and prodded for the final time. Which, hizzoner the Force Surgeon being a former shipmate and gentleman of long acquaintance (and the both of us being gnarled and crusty beasts of marked superannuation), was not so bad as such things go, what with all the youngsters topping it the respectful and ourselves permitted a shred of dignity to go with the closed door and our knit cotton boxers.

Not much later, for reasons beyond the scope of this text, he found hisself trapped inside the confines of the 11th Juvenile Court (Traffic Division) of the City of San Diego, having presented his charge a full 15 minutes early.

Now this was your correspondent’s first visit within the juvenile justice system in just about 30 years, so he did not know - as so many of his more experienced confr?®res of the moment apparently did - that earlier still is better. We were early, but nothing like first in line. And the line, it was so very long.

It is often said that duty at sea is the opportunity to share the fellowship of forced intimacy with 5000 people, most of whom you would not ordinarily choose to associate with. Many, if not most, of those you will meet at the Juvenile Court (Traffic Division) at 1300 on a Thursday afternoon however make the former association seem like a board members meeting at the Links Club by comparison.

The milieu was claustrophobic, some among the neighbors bordering on feral, the wait was interminable and the assorted civil servants sturdily impassive, not to say bovine. Eventually, having stood in the requisite lines and filled out the associated forms and waited around again for what seemed like hours (because it was) ourself and a young person of our acquaintance were ushered into the presence of an august and be-rob?©d gentlemen in company with 19 others of various ages between 13 and 17. Himself serially asked each of the adolescents how they pled to the charges levied against them. Some of which were possession of small quantities of controlled substances, some for petty theft, some for breaking curfew, some of whom had been accused of “daytime loitering” - what might have been called “ditching school” in another argot - and some, like one of those your correspondent had a glancing familiarity with, for the heinous crime of smoking a tobacco cigarette in a public park while not yet 18 years of age. Right there in front of God and everybody.

Which I might suggest, while never gainsaying the importance of physical health nor the pernicious effects of demon tobacco, seemed rather an inefficient way for the public and their servants to while away an afternoon, resources being constrained. But never mind

One young woman, the friend of a teenage female in our circle, was offered the opportunity to attend a two-hour Consequences of Smoking class in exchange for a guilty plea for the possession of tobacco products, which she - being supported by a parental figure of some sagacity - quickly accepted. The young gentleman immediately following however, offered the same punishment for the same crime, entered a plea of “not guilty.”

“You’re aware,” quoth the kindly elder, “that the penalty for pleading guilty is a two-hour class?” asked the judge. Not unkindly.

Yes, replied the juvenile. Certain of his own rectitude.

“Very well,” the senior officer of the court replied, “the clerk outside will assign you a date for your trial.”

“For carrying a lighter?” interjected an impressively choleric and chronically overfed woman from the back row. Apparently related.

“Which he cannot legally carry,” replied another officer of the court, that being, you know: The law.

“Do you wish to change your plea?” asked hizzoner.

“No,” the young man answered. Clearly preferring the uncertain penalties and unknown expenses of the actual. fracking. legal system. To a two-hour class of a Saturday afternoon.

“Right then. Off you go.”

And off they did, fuming.

Moments later my leisure and pleasure both combined to suit standing around the antechamber of the courtroom, awaiting further instructions, like. Impassively delivered by apparently stolid Servants of the State on a time line that seemed more suited to themselves clocking out at on the pip of 1600 rather than any other plausible process driver.

Where I found a certain young person of my acquaintance with another young person of her acquaintance both of whom were pledged to a two-hour tobacco cessation class agreeing that the experience, while educational, had been an altogether unpleasant one. Not unlike, the other young person intuited, the image of government delivered medical care: Rough justice, she said, delivered to the unknowing, by the uncaring.

Oh, it’s not so bad, I thought to myself. So long as you’re a captain