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“Held captive.” It
was how one 13-year-old described the feeling of growing up poor in our wealthy
nation, and for more and more Americans living in poverty, this feeling isn’t
just a metaphor. The recent Department
of Justice report on police and court practices in Ferguson, Missouri put a
much needed spotlight on how a predatory system of enforcement of minor
misdemeanors and compounding fines can trap low-income people in a never-ending
cycle of debt, poverty, and jail. In Ferguson this included outrageous fines
for minor infractions like failing to show proof of insurance and letting grass
and weeds in a yard get too high. In one case a woman who parked her car
illegally in 2007 and couldn’t pay the initial $151 fee has since been arrested
twice, spent six days in jail, paid $550 to a city court, and as of 2014 still
owed the city $541 in fines, all as a result of the unpaid parking ticket. The
Department of Justice found each year Ferguson set targets for the police and
courts to generate more and more money from municipal fines. And Ferguson isn’t
alone. The criminalization of poverty is a growing trend in states and
localities across the country.
The investigation of Ferguson’s
practices came after the killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by a
police officer, and last month the practice of criminalizing poverty made headlines again
after Walter Scott was killed in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott was
shot in the back by police officer Michael Slager on April 4 as he ran away after
being pulled over for a broken taillight. Scott had already served time in jail
for falling behind on child support, and on the day he was stopped there was a
warrant out for his arrest for falling behind again. His family believes his
fear of going back to jail caused him to run from the broken taillight stop. His
brother told The New
York Times that Walter Scott already felt trapped: “Every job he has
had, he has gotten fired from because he went to jail because he was locked up
for child support,” said Rodney Scott, whose brother was most recently working
as a forklift operator. “He got to the point where he felt like it defeated the
purpose.” A 2009 review of county jails in South Carolina found that 1 in 8
inmates was behind bars for failure to pay child support. Rodney Scott
remembered his brother trying to explain to a judge that he simply did not make
enough money to pay the amount ordered by the court: “And the judge
said something like, ‘That’s your problem. You figure it out.’”
The Institute for Policy Studies
recently released a groundbreaking new report
highlighting the policies and practices that have led to increased criminalization
of poverty, and that report and similar studies are finally shining a light on
the way some municipalities are criminalizing poor people just for being poor. The
United States legally ended the practice of debtor’s prisons in 1833, and the
Supreme Court ruled in Bearden v. Georgia (1983) that it is
unconstitutional to imprison those who can’t afford to pay their debt or
restitution in criminal cases, unless the act of not paying debt or restitution
is “willful.” But poor people are being
increasingly targeted with fines and fees for misdemeanors and winding up in
illegal debtors’ prisons when they can’t pay—and in some cases, then being
charged additional fees for court and jail costs. A recent investigation
by National Public Radio, the New York University Brennan Center for
Justice, and the National Center for State Courts cited a study estimating
between 80-85 percent of inmates now leave prison owing debt for court-imposed
costs, restitution, fines and fees. In some jurisdictions defendants are charged
for their room and board during lockup, probation and parole supervision, drug
and alcohol abuse treatment, DNA samples, and even their constitutional right
to a public defender. When poor people can’t pay those fees either, the cycle
of debt and jail time continues.
The
private companies providing probation services in more than half of the states
are some of the biggest winners when poor people are targeted. If
people on probation can’t afford the fees they are charged, they breach their
probation contract; this can result in more jail time, making it even less
likely that they’ll be earning the money they need, and people under the
supervision of these private probation companies often become liable for
charges exceeding the initial cost of their ticket or fine. Federal law also
prohibits people in breach of probation from receiving a range of benefits,
including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and
Supplemental Security Income—once again, exacerbating the cycle of poverty,
probation, and prison.
And state and local policies establish barriers
that make it more difficult for people who have served any time in prison,
including those there because they were poor, to re-integrate into society. According
to a study conducted by the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice
Section, there are more than 38,000 documented statutes nationwide creating
collateral consequences for people with criminal convictions including barriers
to housing, employment, voting, and many public benefits. By denying these
citizens access to basic services they need to survive, our policies needlessly
increase the risk of recidivism and continue to leave people truly trapped—and
when we extend the cycle of poverty by criminalizing poor people, there are only
a few greedy winners and many, many losers.
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Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.
Mrs. Edelman's Child Watch Column also appears each week on The Huffington Post.
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