Prosecutions Are the New Pyramid Scheme — And You’re Paying for It

There is a profoundly ugly truth behind the “Justice” business model.

It’s an uncomfortable reality the system doesn’t want you to see: modern criminal prosecutions operate less like a pursuit of justice and more like a pyramid scheme wearing a badge. Instead of enriching early investors with money, this scheme enriches careers, budgets, and political futures, and its all on the backs of the people trapped at the bottom.

Step 1: Recruit, Recruit, Recruit

Just like pyramid schemes need a constant flow of new recruits to survive, prosecutors need a steady stream of defendants. Without charges to file, there are no plea deals to boast about, no press releases to pad résumés, and no statistics to justify next year’s budget increase.

So the system expands. Minor offenses become felonies. Technical violations become crimes. And behaviors once handled with a warning are suddenly treated like threats to public safety.

Step 2: Sell the Dream

Every pyramid scheme sells an illusion of opportunity and so do prosecutors. They claim they’re fighting for “justice,” “safety,” or “victims.” But in reality, the primary product being sold is conviction metrics.

Every guilty plea, every conviction, every inflated sentence becomes another bullet point on a prosecutor’s campaign flyer. Justice isn’t the goal; the optics of justice are.

Step 3: Exploit the Base

In a pyramid scheme, the people at the bottom, those who buy in late, lose the most. In prosecution land, those people are the defendants. Many are poor, traumatized, or struggling with mental health issues. They’re pressured into plea deals they don’t understand because the system is built to overwhelm them.

The base funds the scheme too: fines, fees, court costs, probation charges, and asset forfeiture flow upward, padding the very system that ensnared them.

Step 4: Climb the Ladder

The higher up the pyramid you go, the bigger the payoff. Entry-level prosecutors make their names on quick plea deals. Senior prosecutors build reputations on splashy indictments and faulty “tough on crime” press conferences. Elected district attorneys use conviction rates as stepping stones to judgeships, political office, or lucrative private practice jobs.

At every level, advancement depends on keeping the machine fed, not questioning whether the people being crushed by it ever received justice.

Step 5: Hide the Collapse

Pyramid schemes collapse when people stop buying in. Prosecutions collapse when people stop believing they’re legitimate. That’s why transparency is so rare, why exculpatory evidence is sometimes buried, why misconduct is minimized, and why whistleblowers face retaliation.

Because if the public saw how much of this system relies on volume, fear, and manipulation, they might just pull the plug.

The Way Out: Stop Being the Downline

The first step to dismantling a pyramid scheme is refusing to participate. That means:

• Demanding prosecutorial accountability: track conviction metrics, plea deal rates, and misconduct records.
• Supporting public defenders and reform advocates who expose systemic abuse.
• Electing prosecutors who commit to decarceration, transparency, and restorative justice.

This system only works if we keep feeding it. And once we stop, once we refuse to be the base holding up a corrupt pyramid, the entire structure begins to crumble.

Pulling It All Together

Justice should never be a numbers game. But in too many courtrooms across America, that’s exactly what it has become; a multi-tiered hustle where power flows upward, punishment trickles down, and the people caught at the bottom are treated not as citizens with rights, but as raw material for someone else’s career.

It’s time we call this system what it is: a scam and one that’s overdue for collapse.