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Subscribe to RSSIt is usually never a thief's intent to get caught in the act. But for a seasoned robber in suburban Illinois, getting arrested may have been exactly what he wanted, according to local media reports.
A criminal complaint states 73-year-old Walter Unbehaun entered a bank in Niles, Ill., Saturday morning and gave a teller a note announcing a robbery, the Chicago Tribune reported. The man reportedly revealed a silver gun and told the teller: "I only have six months to live and have nothing to lose. I don't want to hurt you."
The teller handed over $4,178 in cash, and surveillance cameras at a nearby restaurant captured Unbehaun leaving the scene, according to the Tribune.
Authorities eventually arrested Unbehaun, of Rock Hill, S.C., on Sunday in North Chicago, the Tribune reported. He had been previously convicted of a 1998 bank robbery, the newspaper added.
The criminal complaint says Unbehaun told police he wanted to spend the rest of his life in prison, according to the Tribune. He claimed he'd spent most of his adult life in prison and "wanted to go back as he felt more comfortable in prison than out," the complaint reportedly noted.
This is not the first time someone has asked to be locked up. Last month, a Bremerton, Wash., woman asked a cop to take her to jail even though she hadn't committed a crime, the Kitsap Sun reported. When the officer declined, she hit him in the nose with a soda bottle and was later booked for felony assault, the newspaper added.
Also last month, police say a 30-year-old homeless man broke windows in a county office building in Troy, N.Y., with the hope to get a year in jail, timesunion.com reported.
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All he really had to do was to not pay his Obama-care tax. That would have gotten him arrested! lol
No one's going to prison over Obama care.
More likely this guy was poor and needed health care Conservatives are happy to let you die on the street. This is probably pretty common these days. What a great system, huh?
DING DING DING, we have a winner!
re: wilsonarden331: these boards are for comments about the news articles.
THEY ARE NOT MEANT FOR YOUR STINKING ADVERTISING OF A COMMERCIAL BUSINESS. Please take a 'bang' to your thick skull.
Dont qualify for welfare, commit a felony and get free room and board and free medical. lol
I make too much money to qualify for welfare, but I won't be able to afford quality medical care when I am old and infirm. I plan to commit a non-violent crime when I can no longer care for myself and am unable to afford a nursing home or in-home medical care. If I can then hang on to life for another 6 months or so in prison, I'll feel like a successful American.
This is going to happen A LOT in the coming years.
Odd....when we rob banks we go to jail. When the banks rob us Congress gives 'em more money...
There is a definite lack of symmetry to this arrangement.....
Before South Beach got all flashy, it was a neighborhood for the poorest of the old. They would shoplift food figuring caught or not, they would eat.
How truly heart breaking that this elderly dying man feels compelled to break the law, and go to prison to get his needs met. Because I assume, there is no one available to allow him to die with dignity at home.After a life of working hard, doing what is right, probably supporting a family, it has come down to this. And yet, we don't know the real private details of his life.
Did he have children, who died young or abandoned him,or his wife died years ago with his children, or he never married or got divorced? We don't know anything, except he stated to the teller he only had six months to live. Can we actually sympathize with his willingness to die surrounded by those who had blatantly broken all sorts of laws. Including violent criminals. Everyone welcomes a newborn baby into the world.But where one dies,now that is altogether another matter. Most of us hope to die in our sleep, or surrounded by loved ones.Truth is most of us won't. And we don't really think about that subject.
One does wonder what a judge will do when this poor man stands before him.What would you do if you were the judge?After all, history and motive is looked at when passing sentences.
GM Windancersong
There has been research done in criminal justice studies that show a number of results that ex-cons released from jail get arrested in hopes of going back into prison - not just for 3 hots and a cot, medical etc. - but because it puts them back into a structured environment that they would not do on the outside, if left to their own self-discipline.
They are usually the non-violent offenders
Three hots and a cot and the rest........don't forget the free anal sex, rape, beatings and the rest
Windancer: Did you even READ the article? A life of working hard supporting a family?!?!?! He said himself that he spent MOST of his adult life in prison and felt more comfortable in prison instead of out. It is called fear of freedom or being institutionalized. Please read the article before posting useless information.
Shawshanked! He's an institutional man like Brooks Hatlin
True. Reminds me of Darabont's other film, The Green Mile ... love that movie.
Three hots and a cot, cable TV, instant friends, etc. And to think we've conditioned ourselves to actually believe our jails serve as a deterrent to crime, when in fact they actually invite it.
We keep wondering why violent criminals don't fear incarceration. Even Helen Keller could see why.
It is getting really bad when a homeless person or a woman who can not survive on the streets has to commit a crime to have a roof over their heads and food to eat. It is time for some of the federal and state lands to be allocated for farming and low cost housing for the homeless. The families who do not have drug or violence histories should be kept separate from homeless who have drug or violent behavior problems. In Afghanistan low cost quick built housing of special tents with a hardening foam sprayed on it has served the military well. These communities could be powered by water wood windmill and even solar energy. These people could grow their own food. This strategy would be far more cost effective than the 40,000 dollars plus cost for housing one inmate. For those homeless who are too sick to work with farm work then they could be given easier tasks. Unfortunately most of this group have serious mental and drug problems it would be difficult to get them to voluntarily go into such communities. However, given the rapid increase of homeless families who do not have alcohol or severe mental problems this solution would be ideal for them. You would be surprised how enterprising these families would be. Of course the government would rather pay over inflated prices for private rackets to run the prisons.
Economically, it would make sense for the government to spend half as much to let those homeless people become self-sufficient enough to bounce back on their feet. I agree with you on that.
I also think that there is a method to their prison madness (though it's not one that I agree with). Just look at the prison population demographics. It may be more about controlling certain populations than anything else. No, I'm not saying that any one particular race is to blame nor am I saying that one race is inferior to another. I'm just saying to look at those demographics and the crimes for which they are incarcerated. Look at the penalties on those crimes and see how they match up. That's where I see a discrepancy.
Add to that the fact that, yeah, they DO tend to receive a better quality of life inside prison walls than outside them (face it - generally speaking, those who are committing these crimes usually aren't too well off and, unfortunately, the demographics of wealth distribution in our country don't quite match up, either), and you will inevitably wind up with people who'd rather go to prison and live than be free and die. All you give up in prison are freedom and your rights (rights that are being restricted on the outside more and more each day), so they really lose little, especially when they had little to start with.
Our government is just really, really screwed up. That's all it boils down to.
I take several classes for my criminal justice degree and this is something we've discussed. It is sad that some criminals who have spent most of their lives locked up, to them that is home. Not necessarily 3 hots and a cot for them...but the outside is scary for them, just as someone would be scared @!$%#less if they had never been to prison ever in their life, only to do something intentional or unintentional...and end up behind bars. Like Shawshank Redemption....Excellent movie.
But then you have the ones who can't figure out how to get their lives together and stay off drugs, and stop robbing or killing,.....and well really have never had a real family with morals and values and no good up bringing. They wont find legitimate work so they ' do wat dey gotta do' .... Hell most of them have it better off in prison than they do on the streets.
But my point is....some just get conditioned after long prison sentences and can't function in a normal society.
I guess someone who spends most of their life in prison can't get adjusted back to life when freed, and they just want to get back to where they feel most comfortable.
Im sure his lack of money had something to do with it too.
It is not just a matter of inmates being conditioned to be unable to function on the outside. Even after living in prisons for long periods of time some inmates manage to function on the outside. The ones who can't function on the outside is sometimes because they are abused and taken advantage by those willing to employ them. They can not make enough to even live decently and some are unable to find work. Hell finding work for people with education can be difficult and if they have health issues can be impossible.
The mechanization of the twentieth and twenty first century along with a massive increase in population has caused most of the problems with unemployment.
You will see more of this as the taxes rise and the "locked box" Social Security and Medicare programs are further plundered.
A five year prison term will look more and more like an achievable retirement plan to the general public.
He is probably institutionalized, and also probably poor. With no retirement. Being in jail most of his adult life, he wasn't putting anything in a 401k. I bet money had more to do with it. Especially of he's really poor or homeless.. In that case, I don't blame him. Jail is better than being homeless, or having to live off cat food. Or both. When you are that poor, you lose all your pride and self respect quickly. It becomes a matter of survival. And with the scumbags on Wallstreet ripping everyone off, its a bit of payback. Let them pay for the upkeep through higher taxes. I will do the same thing, if ever in that spot. Without thinking twice about it.
The only sad part of this, is that an elderly person would have to resort to this. Criminal history or otherwise. There's no excuse for how the poor are treated, especially the poor and elderly.
Sounds like jail is the new retirement haven.
The way our elderly are treated is a national disgrace! Abuse by orderly's at the retirement homes were in the news at one point, but its still very bad. My mom, when she was alive, worked at a home for the elderly, she quit because she couldn't stand by and watch the horrors inflicted on the elderly, she was threatened when she blew the whistle on one of the guys who was stealing and she wouldn't even tell me about the physical abuse she witnessed, and the night shift boss didn't do a dam thing about it when she reported it. And these people are the lucky ones who have a retirement home?
How many of the elderly have to decide if these should eat today or pay for their medicine , since they cannot afford both. Last week i saw an article where 4 seniors where kept chained in a basement, thugs where stealing their social security checks. It truly is a National Disgrace how seniors are treated. These are not freeloaders, they have worked their whole life. Not many people make over 100k a year and have a fat retirement or Big 401k. Why does Society treat them like pariah's?
It's like they are just cast aside by society like garbage, and it doesn't have to be this way. I remember when the lottery came out, it was supposed to go straight to education and the elderly. My state of Pennsylvania is one of the few that use most of the money the right way. But the IRS is the real winner. Why? That money would go a Long way to help the elderly. Some states give Nothing to the elderly nor education from lottery proceeds.
I don't claim to to know the answers but we need to do something. Politicians do just enough to seem like they care to get elected then.. Nothing.. no real answers. I voted for a Republican here on the local level who swore he was going to do something about our area's homeless elderly. He won by a close margin and then didn't do a Single Dam thing once he got it. Luckily he lost the next term, I voted for the Democrat this past November. Lets see what he does.. probably nothing also.
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Unfortunately, many people who have spent the majority of their lives incarcerated do not adjust well to life on the outside. Most of my father's friends would do stupid petty things to go back inside because the outside had an unwritten set of rules that they couldn't figure out and they couldn't get the rhythm of life there. He said to them it felt like a pair of women's shoes when all you had ever worn was work boots.