Since Being Poor Isn't Yet A Crime, Why Are We Caging People For It?
Great points in a Dahlia Lithwick piece at Slate -- a conversation with Lava Records CEO Jason Flom. He's a founding member of The Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate the wrongfully convicted.
Now Flom's got a new project -- getting rid of cash bail, which is to say, ending the practice of caging poor people arrested for misdemeanors and traffic violations unless they can come up with sums ranging from $300 to $500.
Lithwick notes:
In any given year, city and county jails across this country lock up between 11 and 13 million people just because they aren't rich enough to write a check for a few hundred dollars. Flom is convinced that every city in the United States should follow the lead of Washington D.C., which has done away with cash bail.
Flom explains:
You are absolutely right that cash bail is a tax on the poor. And it doesn't stop when they leave the jail because in many cases they are hit with court costs, processing fees, etc., which put them in a downward spiral of debt they can't pay and suddenly they find that there are warrants for their arrests, simply because they couldn't pay to be in jail for an alleged transgression. They cycle in and out of jail, and there are other hidden consequences--which may include loss of their drivers' licenses, their jobs, even custody of their children. This process also has a terrible impact on their future employment possibilities, which can thrust families further into poverty.The short answer to your question is that some state legislatures are in fact trying to reform the cash bail system. Connecticut, for instance, where the right and the left are aligned against the bail-bond industrial complex. So this is something you may be able to get your legislators to act on by calling your state representatives.
Flom explains why it's so serious and imperiling to go to jail:
People need to understand that while the word jail may sound more benign than the word prison, jails are overcrowded and violent, and they are incubators of disease.
We need to look at whether somebody's a threat, not whether they've got money in the bank, and make determinations on those grounds.
Traffic ticket you can't pay for? It's sick that we'd jail a person for this -- but part and parcel of a system that now allows the legal theft of people's money, sans conviction for a crime, called "asset forfeiture."
While I agree in theory, especially consideing they myriad of 'crimes' these days, we also need to punish those who victimize others.
I dont think that lays in reforming the bail system, but in first eliminating all the victim less crimes and giving people immunity from frivolous lawsuits.
People vote for jaywalking laws because morons running across a busy street get to sue you for their stupidity when they get hit.
Second make it a law that cities/states can not use monies collected from fines for their budgets.
What ever spending they need to do they need to raise from direct taxes and all that fine money gets paid directly to the criminals victims. No actual victim then no fine
lujlp at April 24, 2016 10:25 PM
"Traffic ticket you can't pay for? It's sick that we'd jail a person for this -- "
What are you proposing instead? Ignoring it?
I get that you object to jailing a person for getting a traffic ticket they can't pay for. What I'm not seeing is a viable suggestion in said.
Patrick at April 25, 2016 12:30 AM
Issue an Offender's Credit Card.
Comes with the fine on it. You make minimum payments until it's paid off; it gets tied to your personal info so it follows you when you move.
I can tell you that at least one GA courthouse has quite a racket going, in that they require cash or money order, but you don't get a receipt; basically, you're counting on Boss Hogg's clerk to keep their records for an auditor. There's no way to tell what you owe unless you appear in person.
I've seen a judge in that county take a driver's license from a woman who lived in another state, and then required her to go a mile to another office to pay the fine.
This is normal procedure. That county collects fines from I-95 traffic, and requires at least TWO court appearances to make sure someone living at a distance cannot make it to court / has to pay.
It's about money, nothing more. It's appalling how we've LET these people become adversarial.
Radwaste at April 25, 2016 1:13 AM
Interesting idea, but what happens if the payments aren't made? It's been my observation that the indigent don't much care about their credit rating...which could be part of the reason they're indigent.
On the other hand, for those who are intending to turn their life around, it could be part of credit rehabilitation.
Or perhaps you're suggesting we jail them if they don't make payments.
Patrick at April 25, 2016 1:29 AM
"Or perhaps you're suggesting we jail them if they don't make payments."
Nope. Why go back to square one?
In such cases, the minimum could be drawn from whatever assistance they get. The same court that determines the fine does have the power to determine indigence. That way, a penalty is applied - one that can be seen and felt by the offender - without leaving the offense unsatisfied.
The nature of such a card would make a court's recordkeeping and penalties subject to discipline by higher offices, too.
Ideally, of course. I never expect to see this due to the large numbers of people dedicated to claiming that the poor absolutely cannot help themselves and deserve every dollar set aside for them, no matter what.
Radwaste at April 25, 2016 4:44 AM
Well, you're probably right about that. You'll find people who will battle endlessly that they cannot spare even a single penny to pay their fines.
Patrick at April 25, 2016 5:15 AM
This isn't to say someone doesn't owe a fine; just that we don't jail them for not being able to fork over $300 or $500 for bail to stay out of jail.
Amy Alkon at April 25, 2016 5:22 AM
In Lichtenstein or somewhere like that (this happened while my father lived in Germany), my dad ran a red light, and it was caught on camera. He was banned from driving for one month in Germany and all other countries in proximity who share the system. I don't know if we have anything like that, where the penalty involves having your license "deactivated" for a short period of time.
It was an interesting alternative to a financial penalty, which I'm sure my Dad would have preferred.
In this case, I guess you run up against the problem of people being unable to get to work, offending again, multiplying the penalty, etc. Maybe for traffic violations your license temporarily turns into a Cinderella license.
Insufficient Poison at April 25, 2016 6:30 AM
Jailing people for unpaid traffic tickets is not "asset forfeiture," it's intimidation. It's meant to intimidate the next person who tries to get away with not paying his traffic ticket.
The fines for minor offenses have gone up to the point that only the rich can afford to get a ticket. When I first moved to California in 1995, the fine for riding single in the HOV lane was
So, if you're rich enough in California to afford a Tesla or something on the list of acceptable alternative fuel vehicles, you can zip on through in the HOV lane by yourself.
If you're one of those unlucky saps who can only afford one vehicle and it has to be something that burns those evil carbons on-site (instead of using stored electricity produced by burning carbons near poor people), then I guess you're just out of luck. You'll have to sit in COPD-inducing traffic while the Teslas and the Prii(?) zip on by.
And that's not the only traffic violation in California on which the fine has increased astronomically. Why, because traffic tickets are revenue sources for the state, county, and municipal governments.
This is not a new thing. In the 1980s, the town of Waldo, Florida was faced with a budget deficit. The town, already long known as a speed trap, was presented with two options to increase revenue: raise the property taxes or increase the fine for speeding (levied mostly on unaware University of Florida students passing through on the way to and from Gainesville). To no one's surprise, the town opted to increase the fine for speeding.
The real reason Ferguson, Missouri erupted into riots was traffic fines. Poor people, mostly black in Ferguson, couldn't afford to pay the fines and the attendant court costs (usually several times the actual fine) and their frustration with their mostly-white police force whom they saw as responsible for imposing the fines overflowed into rage upon the shooting of Michael Brown and the resultant agitation of outsiders.
Governments have got to stop using the citizens as an ATM for their profligate spending habits. At some point, real choices as to what should be spent and on what programs have to be made, but legislators are to cowardly to stand up and announce that the government cannot afford to provide cradle to grave services for the population and still build bridges, pave roads, and defend the country from invasion.
Conan the Grammarian at April 25, 2016 6:50 AM
Sorry, I used the less than sign and triggered the HTML formatting which obliterated the rest of my paragraph.
It should be:
The fines for minor offenses have gone up to the point that only the rich can afford to get a ticket. When I first moved to California in 1995, the fine for riding single in the HOV lane was less than $200. When I left earlier this year, it was almost $500.
Conan the Grammarian at April 25, 2016 6:53 AM
If they can afford a car, they can afford to pay their traffic citations.
And if not, they can sell the car and pay the ticket. Then they won't have to pay for insurance, gas and maintenance. So bonus!
I R A Darth Aggie at April 25, 2016 6:55 AM
"And if not, they can sell the car and pay the ticket. Then they won't have to pay for insurance, gas and maintenance. So bonus!"
Then they can't pick up their kids or get to work, which eventually could make them a more expensive burden on the state, even if we don't put them in jail.
Insufficient Poison at April 25, 2016 7:23 AM
I agree that in general, it's ridiculous and pointless to jail people for unpaid traffic tickets. I think that one thing that people object to, whenever discussion of the matter comes up, is the moral hazard; it often seems to wind up devolving into an argument that the poor should be treated more leniently under the law than the middle class. That's where reform movements lose broad-based support.
Jail, or the threat of it, always has to be there, in order to deal with the few people who are incorrigible. But it should be a last resort. It should be possible to work off a ticket, by doing volunteer work for the city or county. In fact, I can make an argument that the sentence for most traffic tickets should be a work-off. Why let wealthier people buy their way out? But in order to implement this, someone would have to stand up to the government workers' unions. Which is why it will never happen.
And yes, the fine amounts for traffic tickets are ridiculous. And add on the fees, fees, fees, which are often a way of getting around state constitutional limits on fines. Courts are in on the racket, so they won't do anything. The profit motive has to be taken out of policing. All monies from fines and forfeitures should go into a fund that is 100% returned to the people at the end of the year. It gets divided up evenly between everyone who files a tax return.
Cousin Dave at April 25, 2016 7:33 AM
The people I know that get trapped in this stuff drive w/o insurance, w/o licenses, and only pony up or stop the above when they go to jail.
They are poor, work for cash only, and have lifetimes of poor self-control which sabotage the help they receive from others (have helped several with and w/o success and lost money doing it).
Damn if you do and damned if you don't.
I like the idea of working off the fines but believe its should be in jail work, kids put in protected environment while Mothers get help while in jail and in half-way houses etc., and community-based training for those young/smart enough to "get it".
Bob in Texas at April 25, 2016 8:28 AM
One option is to make the jail time on weekends or whenever the person is off work. This way they don't lose their job. The way laws are phrased often $500 or 6 months in jail. there is no way that these are equal in terms of punishment. A traffic fine or similar should be 1 or 2 days jail, max, not months. That is still plenty of incentive for people.
A big part of the problem is piling on the fees. If you are late with your $500 fee they add court costs and now you owe $1000. If you miss certain court dates it is now a felony and a warrant goes out for you. But some poor people are quite disorganized and can't deal with the court system, or don't speak English. This was what was happening in Ferguson, along with fines for home and yard appearance issues.
Craig Loehle at April 25, 2016 8:34 AM
I like Cousin Dave's idea of working off the fine or Craig's idea of serving short sentences when the person isn't working.
Either would be better than losing their job because they end up in jail for long sentences because they cannot afford a fine.
Katrina at April 25, 2016 10:17 AM
The fact that they can afford to buy the car is in no way relevant to the fact that the government is raising the fines and court fees to indefensible levels in order to milk the populace to feed the government's ravenous appetite for cash.
This, more than Michael Brown or Eric Garner, is why BLM exists.
Yes.
We're using our police and our jail system to manage our social problems. Get behind on your child support, go to jail. Be too poor to pay a traffic fine, go to jail.
Don't know how feasible your idea of dividing up fine and seizure money among the people is. I fear such an arrangement would embolden politicians to increase seizures to give out freebies to voters.
Conan the Grammarian at April 25, 2016 10:24 AM
Conan, you might be right about the freebies. Although I suspect the amount received by any one person would not be enough to provide any real motivation. I looked up some stats; NHTSA estimated that states collected $6.232B in traffic fines in 2013, and the IRS said that about 122M federal tax returns were filed that year. That's $51 per tax return. The benefit comes in convincing governments that punitive jacking-up of fines and fees (and asset forfeitures) is pointless since the government doesn't get to keep the money. Eliminate the motivation for the government to prey on the citizenry.
And something I forgot to mention above: Craig Loehle points out that what was going on in Ferguson wasn't just traffic tickets. They were levying fines for every damn thing you can think of. For homeowners, there were fines for not mowing your lawn frequently enough, or having some paint peeling on the front of your house, or leaving your cark parked in the driveway overnight too many times. For business owners, there were sign code violations and failures to display permits and licenses exactly the way the city wanted to see them, and a million other things. They were really nickel-and-diming the citizens. From what I saw when I was working there, the whole St. Louis area is that way.
(And this is where BLM blew it. They took things that were universal concerns and tried to make out that only black people were suffering from them.)
Cousin Dave at April 25, 2016 12:39 PM
The key here is to reveal what is being collected and where it is going!
Radwaste at April 26, 2016 10:30 AM
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