YOLO! Florida Woman’s Bucket List Item Was To Get Arrested

Climbing Mount Everest, visting the pyramids in Egypt or learning the tango are some familiar bucket list items. But for a Florida woman at the ripe-old-age of 19, getting arrested was on her bucket list.

Janiya Shaimiracle Douglas was pulled over for reckless driving, leading to a flashing-lights and siren-blaring chase in Monroe County, Florida, early Thursday morning. She told cops that getting arrested was on her “bucket list” and that she had had this dream since high school.  Douglas had been speeding and driving recklessly down Card Sound Road, catching the eye of Monroe County Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Dosh, who tried to stop Douglas but to no avail.  Douglas continued driving, despite the patrol car’s lights and sirens, and eventually stopped at a three-way intersection near County Road 905 where she was arrested for fleeing and eluding.

Douglas’ mug shot shows her with a bemused look on her face, seemingly content with the fulfilment of this bucket list item that had eluded her up until this point. Unclear is whether Douglas premeditated her traffic violation or if the event happened organically.

Florida woman Janiya Douglas says getting arrested was on bucket list https://t.co/mg4xa5WZLb pic.twitter.com/kZjfgRtWtg

— New York Post (@nypost) May 13, 2022

According to Bucketlist.net there is a plethora of bucket list items for teens. The top ten bucket list items the site suggests are:

1. Arrange a Scavenger Hunt
2. Attend a Comic-Con
3. Attend a Concert
4. Bake a Cake
5. Be a Tourist in Your Own City
6. Binge Watch a Series
7. Call Your Crush and Invite Him/Her To a Party
8. Camp in the Backyard
9. Complete a 1,000-piece Jigsaw Puzzle
10. Cook Dinner For Your Parents

Notably absent from the list is getting arrested.

Others have tried to get arrested but for different reasons than Douglas. BusinessInsider.com did a report on people who go out of their way to commit a crime in order to get caught and the reasons range from sad to crazy:

1. To sneak contraband into jail: This happened at a jail in Indiana where 80% of the inmates were in there for drug-related charges and were heavy drug users themselves. Accomplices of the drug dealers would get arrested and then sell the drugs consealed in body orifices for much higher than they would get on the street.
2. To get healthcare: A man with a rare form of leukemia and a criminal record shoplifted $23 worth of goods from a grocery store so he’d land back in jail for violating parole and get access to prison medical care.
3. To quit smoking: A California woman slapped a county deputy in the face in order to be thrown in jail because she couldn’t quit smoking cigarettes. She had waited hours outside the jail for a deputy to walk by.
4. To quit heroin: Like the California smoker a man in Ohio intentionally violated a temporary protection order so he could go to jail in order to kick his heroin habit. That’s quite a detox.
5. To have food and drink: A homeless man in Georgia threw a brick through a courthouse window so he could have a sandwich and a drink in jail. He deemed this better than life on the streets.
6. To make a point: Ever the activist, Ben Cohen, the cofounder of Ben and Jerry’s, was arrested in Vermont for violating noise ordinances after he blasted jet noises from speakers on his truck. His goal was to simulate the type of noise Burlington residents could expect if a plan gets approved to send 18 Air Force F-35 jets to the city’s Air National Guard base.
7. To find out what it’s like: A former prosecutor and criminal justice reform advocate tried to get arrested for spray-painting New York City’s City Hall while wearing a suit.  Cops didn’t believe he was the perpetrator when he tried to turn himself in, but he eventually landed behind bars and wrote an account of his ordeal.
8. To stop feeling lonely: This phenomenon comes out of Japan where elderly people without friends or family are intentionally getting arrested because prison is a community for them, a place to talk with someone and have a meal with others. Most of the crimes are petty theft and the majority committing them are women.