Hoax Sisters: Jennifer and Tawana

By Nicholas Stix I was pleased to see that “runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks has been indicted on criminal charges for her kidnapping hoax. With crime, a formula similar to economics in general holds true: If you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of it, subsidize it. Criminal prosecution is the ultimate “tax.” And the refusal by the authorities (police chiefs, prosecutors, etc.) to arrest and prosecute criminals is the ultimate subsidy – it encourages them to commit more crimes, while handcuffing their victims and the police. (Are you listening, Pres. Amnesty?) Just imagine how much grief and how many millions of dollars the American people would have been saved, had law enforcement authorities prosecuted Tawana Brawley, who with Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox, and C. Vernon Mason, engineered the mother of all race hoaxes, in 1988? But would a black woman have been charged the same as Wilbanks? That was a rhetorical question.