Prison Proxies

Benito Ramirez will soon begin serving time in prison for a crime he did not commit. The district attorney and the judge are fully aware that Mr. Ramirez committed no crime. His family members are pleases to see him go to prison. Even Mr. Ramirez is cheerful as be boards the bus that will take him to prison.

Benito Ramirez is just one of a rapidly growing number of “prison proxies,” people who are paid to do time in prison on behalf of clients. Benito will earn approximately $150,000 over the next three years while serving prison time on behalf of a client who paid the prison proxy agency a fee of $200,000 to arrange for someone else to serve out a sentence for a narcotics conviction.

For Mr. Ramirez, $150,000 is a sizable fortune and a vast improvement over what he could have earned over the next three years in his native country of Guatemala.

“Can jew focking beleef it?” Benito told reporters as he boarded the prison bus. “$50,00 a jeer for tres jeers! Dot eez amazing! And I no haff to paying no rent and my food eez all free! ¡Dios mio! I love America!”

Prison proxies are the third fastest growing service industry in America (after tattoo artists and desploogination services). Agencies are springing up all across the fruited plains. Prison proxies can now even be arranged for sentences of 12 months or less using smart phone apps.

Not everyone approves of prison proxies. Those liberal, vegan, pansy-asses of indeterminate gender who litter the west coast bitterly complain that prison proxy services are just another way the wealthy in America take advantage of minorities, immigrants and the less fortunate.

In a new trend that is sure to elicit further criticism, some prison proxy agencies have commenced offering proxies in death penalty cases. But having some one else executed in your place doesn’t come cheap! A stand-in for your execution can run as high as $5 million for an imminent execution or as low as $200,000 if the arrangements are made in advance (as a form of pre-paid death penalty insurance).

Ron Battaglia, proprietor of Death Penalty Understudies of Hollywood explains, “Death penalty proxies usually involve the elderly or terminally ill who are short-timers anyway. They see this as a way to pay their medical expenses and still leave a tidy sum behind for their surviving family members.”

Howls of outrage against death penalty proxies are increasingly widespread. Opponents claim that death penalty proxies are nothing more than a modern day form of human sacrifice and urge lawmakers to outlaw the practice.

David Goldstein, owner of the Angels of Redemption (a death penalty proxy agency in Brooklyn) cavalierly brushes aside all the criticisms asking, “A proxy is executed on the gurney for your crime and Jesus died on the cross for your sins, so you tell me, what’s the big fucking difference?”