South Carolina Judge Turns Lawbreakers Into Food Donors

Caught speeding? That will be $25, paid out in cans of tuna. Wrote a bad check? Baby food, $55 worth.

In Magistrate Don Hensley’s court, offenders give back to the community--in food that goes straight to the poor.

If all of South Carolina’s judges tried these alternative sentences, Hensley said, “there would be no hungry children.”

He put his idea into practice last month and already raised $4,000 worth of food for two local agencies. Five other magistrates in the state have asked how to start their own program.

Hensley, 45, remembers his own hungry times. Raising a family and going to school, he and his wife and their two children got by on macaroni and cheese and peas. Occasionally they splurged and added tuna to the peas. “I’ve often wondered why the government didn’t plant mulberry trees, pear trees, or pecan trees along highways or government buildings . . . so anybody who was hungry could pick the trees,” he said. “I’m not in the position where I could do that, but I am in a position to do what I’m doing.”

State Sen. David Thomas, who recommended Hensley for the magistrate position, said he likes the idea. And Hensley said he has heard no complaints about any loss of revenues from fines.

“This is a very constructive way of repaying the community for what happened,” said Herbert Hoelter, director of the Virginia-based National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, which tracks alternative sentencing across the nation. “No matter how one cuts it, it’s the community that’s affected by the crime.”

Only nonviolent, petty offenders are made to pay their fines in food, Hensley said. In his courtroom--fashioned out of a defunct movie theater in this suburb of Greenville in the state’s northwest corner--piles of canned food wait.

“If I’m going to pay a ticket, I’d rather have it go to something like that,” said John Rutland, who was fined $25 for a traffic ticket.