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ashbetMarginal Revolution: "Ferguson and the Modern Debtor's Prison"
Debtor’s prisons are supposed to be illegal in the United States but today poor people who fail to pay even small criminal justice fees are routinely being imprisoned. The problem has gotten worse recently because strapped states have dramatically increased the number of criminal justice fees….Failure to pay criminal justice fees can result in revocation of an individual’s drivers license, arrest and imprisonment. Individuals with revoked licenses who drive (say to work to earn money to pay their fees) and are apprehended can be further fined and imprisoned. Unpaid criminal justice debt also results in damaged credit reports and reduced housing and employment prospects. Furthermore, failure to pay fees can mean a violation of probation and parole terms which makes an individual ineligible for Federal programs such as food stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Family funds and Social Security Income for the elderly and disabled.
* * *
Mother Jones: "In Ferguson, Cops Hand Out 3 Warrants [and average $321 in fines] Per Household Every Year"
We've all seen a number of stories like this recently, and it prompts a question: why are police departments allowed to fund themselves with ticket revenue in the first place? Or red light camera revenue. Or civil asset forfeiture revenue. Or any other kind of revenue that provides them with an incentive to be as hardass as possible. Am I missing something when I think that this makes no sense at all?
* * *
New York Times: "The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism"
Collection companies and the services they offer appeal to politicians and public officials for a number of reasons: they cut government costs, reducing the need to raise taxes; they shift the burden onto offenders, who have little political influence, in part because many of them have lost the right to vote; and it pleases taxpayers who believe that the enforcement of punishment — however obtained — is a crucial dimension to the administration of justice.
As N.P.R. reported in May, services that “were once free, including those that are constitutionally required,” are now frequently billed to offenders: the cost of a public defender, room and board when jailed, probation and parole supervision, electronic monitoring devices, arrest warrants, drug and alcohol testing, and D.N.A. sampling. This can go to extraordinary lengths: in Washington state, N.P.R. found, offenders even “get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.”
This new system of offender-funded law enforcement creates a vicious circle: The poorer the defendants are, the longer it will take them to pay off the fines, fees and charges; the more debt they accumulate, the longer they will remain on probation or in jail; and the more likely they are to be unemployable and to become recidivists.
* * *
Washington Post: "How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty"
Some of the towns in St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink (St. Louis’s light rail system), loud music and other noise ordinance violations, zoning violations for uncut grass or unkempt property, violations of occupancy permit restrictions, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” business license violations and vague infractions such as “disturbing the peace” or “affray” that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations. In a white paper released last month (PDF), the ArchCity Defenders found a large group of people outside the courthouse in Bel-Ridge who had been fined for not subscribing to the town’s only approved garbage collection service. They hadn’t been fined for having trash on their property, only for not paying for the only legal method the town had designated for disposing of trash.
{snip}
Quinn describes one homeless girl who had been written up for violating an occupancy permit restriction. To simply reside in St. Louis County, you have to register your residence with the local government. What that entails varies from town to town. In the town of Berkeley, for example, new tenants must obtain an occupancy permit from the Inspections Department of the City of Berkeley. A permit costs $20, and requires a valid driver’s license or identification card. If your license has been suspended due to an outstanding warrant, you can’t move in. A permit includes the names of the people legally allowed to live at the residence. If you want to add additional names or change a name, it’s an additional $25 and a signed authorization from the landlord. And again, you’ll need an ID.
In theory, occupancy permits are to prevent fire hazards and overcrowding. But they can also be another way for towns to generate revenue. Quinn’s client, for example, was the victim in a domestic abuse incident. But when the police arrived, they checked her occupancy permit, which only allowed for one person to reside at the apartment. The officers then cited the woman and her boyfriend $74 each for violating the permit. When Quinn protested that the law makes no effort to distinguish visitors from unlawful residents, the municipal prosecutor stated that “nothing good happens after 10pm” when single men and women are alone together — a sentiment later echoed by the judge. Other attorneys say that the permits are sometimes even used to enforce anachronistic laws prohibiting cohabitation of unmarried couples.
* * *
I think this quote from the New York Times article sums it up:
What should be done to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop between low-level crime and extortionate punishment? First, local governments should bring private sector collection charges, court-imposed administrative fees and the dollar amount of traffic fines (which often double and triple when they go unpaid) into line with the economic resources of poor offenders. But larger reforms are needed and those will not come about unless the poor begin to exercise their latent political power. In many ways, everything is working against them. But the public outpouring spurred by the shooting of Michael Brown provides an indication of a possible path to the future. It was, after all, just 50 years ago — not too distant in historical terms — that collective action and social solidarity produced tangible results.
Debtor’s prisons are supposed to be illegal in the United States but today poor people who fail to pay even small criminal justice fees are routinely being imprisoned. The problem has gotten worse recently because strapped states have dramatically increased the number of criminal justice fees….Failure to pay criminal justice fees can result in revocation of an individual’s drivers license, arrest and imprisonment. Individuals with revoked licenses who drive (say to work to earn money to pay their fees) and are apprehended can be further fined and imprisoned. Unpaid criminal justice debt also results in damaged credit reports and reduced housing and employment prospects. Furthermore, failure to pay fees can mean a violation of probation and parole terms which makes an individual ineligible for Federal programs such as food stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Family funds and Social Security Income for the elderly and disabled.
* * *
Mother Jones: "In Ferguson, Cops Hand Out 3 Warrants [and average $321 in fines] Per Household Every Year"
We've all seen a number of stories like this recently, and it prompts a question: why are police departments allowed to fund themselves with ticket revenue in the first place? Or red light camera revenue. Or civil asset forfeiture revenue. Or any other kind of revenue that provides them with an incentive to be as hardass as possible. Am I missing something when I think that this makes no sense at all?
* * *
New York Times: "The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism"
Collection companies and the services they offer appeal to politicians and public officials for a number of reasons: they cut government costs, reducing the need to raise taxes; they shift the burden onto offenders, who have little political influence, in part because many of them have lost the right to vote; and it pleases taxpayers who believe that the enforcement of punishment — however obtained — is a crucial dimension to the administration of justice.
As N.P.R. reported in May, services that “were once free, including those that are constitutionally required,” are now frequently billed to offenders: the cost of a public defender, room and board when jailed, probation and parole supervision, electronic monitoring devices, arrest warrants, drug and alcohol testing, and D.N.A. sampling. This can go to extraordinary lengths: in Washington state, N.P.R. found, offenders even “get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.”
This new system of offender-funded law enforcement creates a vicious circle: The poorer the defendants are, the longer it will take them to pay off the fines, fees and charges; the more debt they accumulate, the longer they will remain on probation or in jail; and the more likely they are to be unemployable and to become recidivists.
* * *
Washington Post: "How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty"
Some of the towns in St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink (St. Louis’s light rail system), loud music and other noise ordinance violations, zoning violations for uncut grass or unkempt property, violations of occupancy permit restrictions, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” business license violations and vague infractions such as “disturbing the peace” or “affray” that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations. In a white paper released last month (PDF), the ArchCity Defenders found a large group of people outside the courthouse in Bel-Ridge who had been fined for not subscribing to the town’s only approved garbage collection service. They hadn’t been fined for having trash on their property, only for not paying for the only legal method the town had designated for disposing of trash.
{snip}
Quinn describes one homeless girl who had been written up for violating an occupancy permit restriction. To simply reside in St. Louis County, you have to register your residence with the local government. What that entails varies from town to town. In the town of Berkeley, for example, new tenants must obtain an occupancy permit from the Inspections Department of the City of Berkeley. A permit costs $20, and requires a valid driver’s license or identification card. If your license has been suspended due to an outstanding warrant, you can’t move in. A permit includes the names of the people legally allowed to live at the residence. If you want to add additional names or change a name, it’s an additional $25 and a signed authorization from the landlord. And again, you’ll need an ID.
In theory, occupancy permits are to prevent fire hazards and overcrowding. But they can also be another way for towns to generate revenue. Quinn’s client, for example, was the victim in a domestic abuse incident. But when the police arrived, they checked her occupancy permit, which only allowed for one person to reside at the apartment. The officers then cited the woman and her boyfriend $74 each for violating the permit. When Quinn protested that the law makes no effort to distinguish visitors from unlawful residents, the municipal prosecutor stated that “nothing good happens after 10pm” when single men and women are alone together — a sentiment later echoed by the judge. Other attorneys say that the permits are sometimes even used to enforce anachronistic laws prohibiting cohabitation of unmarried couples.
* * *
I think this quote from the New York Times article sums it up:
What should be done to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop between low-level crime and extortionate punishment? First, local governments should bring private sector collection charges, court-imposed administrative fees and the dollar amount of traffic fines (which often double and triple when they go unpaid) into line with the economic resources of poor offenders. But larger reforms are needed and those will not come about unless the poor begin to exercise their latent political power. In many ways, everything is working against them. But the public outpouring spurred by the shooting of Michael Brown provides an indication of a possible path to the future. It was, after all, just 50 years ago — not too distant in historical terms — that collective action and social solidarity produced tangible results.
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 04:07 am (UTC)they gave her jail time which was immediately highly reduced because of overcrowding in the jail,she came out of it about 2.5 days later owing no fee at all....they want your money ,not your ass as a drain on jail cost
if you have a few days to spare,it is worth it to call their bluff
its not right for them to use this tactic to try to run their city
but we all know they care little for poor/needy people
no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 04:59 am (UTC)She was fortunate, though -- spending time in jail is a gamble, especially hoping that they'll reduce the sentence. And if you have children at home or a job to keep, jail time can mean the difference between keeping custody and losing it, or keeping a job and losing it.
(I know that I absolutely could not have spent even a weekend in jail to deal with the traffic-fine situation I found myself in, when I was in my twenties and ran into this same kind of "fines double every 90 days" thing -- an expired registration turned into $2K in fines in a very short period of time, especially since the car-park police at my local Metro stop started ticketing my car every day because of the registration sticker, but I couldn't just stop going in to work until I had the money to pay the fee. It's a vicious cycle, and it can turn you from a law-abiding citizen into a criminal, all for the lack of a fairly small amount of money at just the right time.)
Also, honestly -- there is no amount of money that could induce me to spend even a night in jail. The idea makes my throat close up. Some people can take it -- I actually have a phobia-level amount of fear about having my rights and liberties taken away, and being trapped and under the heel of someone in complete authority over every aspect of my person.
It seriously might not be that bad, for someone else -- assuming that it met their expectations and that they weren't subject to violence or medical issues or institutional abuse. After all -- once you're in, you can't change your mind, and you have little control over how long they keep you.
If I were sentenced to any lengthy amount of time in jail/prison for some reason, I doubt I'd live to show up for the first day of incarceration. It's enough to make me actively suicidal. I'm not exaggerating or catastrophizing -- I know myself, I know my history, and I know that I would not survive that scenario, facing a sentence of a month or more.
(If I were told I had to spend 3 days in jail, I'm not saying that I'd kill myself -- but those 3 days would be extremely detrimental to my mental, and likely physical, health. You *really* don't want to be locked up if you have complex medical conditions that require daily treatment/medication, especially if some of those medications are pain-related.)
I understand what you're saying -- but in a lot of these towns, getting sentenced actually isn't the end of a person's debt. Then they have to pay for court costs, or to be on probation, or to get monthly drug tests, or some other thing that allows the town to be a leech on the citizen's side forever.
(Also, they don't want you in jail when you're in a *public* jail -- but if you're in an area with privatized prisons, those prisons absolutely DO want you in there, because they get paid every day by the state and federal government, as long as they can fill those cells. An empty cell is a drain on their pocketbook -- so, an area with privatized prisons/jails is actually *not* going to want to let people out, rather than trying to keep them for every day they're sentenced, and to add on to the sentence if possible.)
It's not right, and it shouldn't be legal. I am hoping and praying that the spotlight on Ferguson is going to cause some of these issues to be cleaned up, because they amount to no more than legally-sanctioned debtor's prisons at this point, and most people have no choice about running up the "debts" in the first place, with all the fines and fees and high costs of being poor and in this kind of situation.
-- A <3