Does it matter where I was arrested, like near a school, in determining how I am charged?

State legislatures and the federal government have enacted many laws that state that penalties are enhanced if certain crimes, like for example, drug crimes are committed close to a church, close to a school. They wanna do that to make the punishments even more severe. Of course, none of these laws are necessary because the punishments allowed, the statutory maximums, as it’s called, are so severe in almost every case that these laws are unnecessary, but laws are enacted because of lobbying, so for example, certain crimes against the elderly are punished more severely, just like crimes that take place by schools, by churches, etcetera.

By Jeffrey S. Weiner, P.A.