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.
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timeasmymeasure
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