A "return" to debtors’ prisons: Jeff Sessions’ war on the poor

[Crude Abolitionist]

I put return in quotations cause they been putting people in jail for not paying traffic fines and little bullshyt like suspended drivers licenses and shyt.

A return to debtors’ prisons: Jeff Sessions’ war on the poor
By reversing numerous longtime rules, Sessions is bringing back unconstitutional penalties for unpaid debts

One day after President Donald Trump invited Republican lawmakers to the White House to celebrate the historic tax cuts they passed for corporations and wealthy business leaders, his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, quitely reinstated a draconian policy that effectively serves as a regressive tax on America’s poorest people.

A symbol of Victorian England’s inequitable nature made infamous by Charles dikkens, debtors’ prisons were banned in the United States in 1833. The Supreme Court has affirmed the unconstitutionality of jailing those too poor to pay debts on three different occasion in the last century, finding that the 14th Amendment prohibits incarceration for non-payment of exorbitant court-imposed fines or fees without an assessment of a person’s ability to pay and alternatives for those who cannot. “Punishing a person for his poverty” is illegal, the Court said. Yet in recent years the modern-day equivalent of debtors' prisons have returned, as cities have grown to rely on a punishing regime of fines and fees imposed on their own residents as a major stream of revenue.

Routine traffic tickets or even overdue student loan payments can set off a cycle of debt that also includes the suspension of a driver’s license or professional license and, in some cases, jail time. A suspended driver’s license makes it nearly impossible to get to work. When a person can’t pay, courts add more fines on top of the original. If those fees aren’t paid, a jail sentence is imposed. Incarceration is also often meted out to low-income defendants facing misdemeanor charges who cannot afford to pay bond ahead of a court date. It should come as little surprise that the policing tactics that have been enacted to generate revenue through this debtors’ system disproportionately impact people of color.

V They making money off poor people to they not going to stop this on their own.... V

Apparently less concerned with the plethora of jurisdictions effectively funding their operations on the backs of their poorest residents, Sessions explained that he sought to do away with “the long-standing abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page.” After ordering a reform task force to identify “existing guidance documents that go too far,” the attorney general revoked more than two dozen such documents going back to 1975 on various topics, including a Reagan-era “industry circular” that stated it was illegal to ship certain guns across state line. He also issued a memo last month barring the Department of Justice from issuing nonbinding guidances.

Some good news if you want to call it that.

“The retraction of this guidance doesn’t change the existing legal framework,” she reminded The New York Times. “He can retract the guidance, but he can’t change what the law says.” Indeed, as the ACLU has noted:

Several weeks ago, a federal court ruled that New Orleans judges faced a conflict of interest in jailing poor people for unpaid fines because the judges control the money collected and rely on it for court funding. That same week, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction halting Michigan’s system for suspending driver’s licenses upon non-payment of traffic tickets due to constitutional concerns. And days later, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety agreed to reinstate the driver’s licenses of all drivers whose licenses were suspended for non-payment of court fines and fees.

In Missouri, where the troubling resurgence of debtors’ prisons first gained national attention, more than a dozen plaintiffs won a class action lawsuit filed against 13 St. Louis suburbs they accused of “conspiring” to “extort money” from poor African-American residents via traffic tickets in “a deliberate and coordinated scheme.” Even in Sessions' home state of Alabama, a Republican state legislator has sponsored legislation that would do away with debtors’ prison.

A return to debtors’ prisons: Jeff Sessions’ war on the poor

They never got rid of debtors prison like they never got rid of slavery. Now that 45 and Jeff sessions are in charge they trying to fill up these jails in prisons with more poor black people than ever. I'm just now getting out of trouble where I be at I have had to pay thousands of dollars and can easily be put in jail over some traffic fine bullshyt.

Like I said before they have major incentive from real estate tax breaks to criminalize anything and fill these cells up.

We have to organize and defend ourselves. We need new abolitionist the movement needs new blood we have to continue the fight to end slavery for good in Amerikkka.

 

[Easy-E]

Raise taxes and fukk up wages

Give us Uber to skirt employment laws

Give us predatory lending

Privatize as many social programs as possible

Now, we need debaters prison

Lawd, this country is slick

Black people we love us some credit to pretend we have it better then we really do

When they come for our credit balances, we done

This is something we'd need to leave the country for

 

[killacal]

Raise taxes and fukk up wages

Give us Uber to skirt employment laws

Give us predatory lending

Privatize as many social programs as possible

Now, we need debaters prison

Lawd, this country is slick

Black people we love us some credit to pretend we have it better then we really do

When they come for our credit balances, we done

This is something we'd need to leave the country for

It's not a country it's a business...

 

[Crude Abolitionist]

Raise taxes and fukk up wages

Give us Uber to skirt employment laws

Give us predatory lending

Privatize as many social programs as possible

Now, we need debaters prison

Lawd, this country is slick

Black people we love us some credit to pretend we have it better then we really do

When they come for our credit balances, we done

This is something we'd need to leave the country for

So many people at my job getting these crazy ass car loans...They not going to let people just default can call it a day they want you behind bars...

Being financially illiterate in the future if we don't do something now will literally have you locked up.

Amerikkka INC.

 

[Crude Abolitionist]

.

 

[jwinfield]

It's not a country it's a business...

 

[King of Creampies]

So many people at my job getting these crazy ass car loans...They not going to let people just default can call it a day they want you behind bars...

Being financially illiterate in the future if we don't do something now will literally have you locked up.

Amerikkka INC.

I am curious where are they getting these loans from? A bank or simple 2 bit dealership with massive interest?

Heard of much similar going on in other places...especially cats with these 500-600 monthly 48 month car loans.

 

[Wink Beaufield]

So many people at my job getting these crazy ass car loans...They not going to let people just default can call it a day they want you behind bars...

Being financially illiterate in the future if we don't do something now will literally have you locked up.

Amerikkka INC.

84 month car loans are a thing. That shyt shocked the hell outta me.

 

[Crude Abolitionist]

84 month car loans are a thing. That shyt shocked the hell outta me.

Yep It makes no damn since. Like why do people want expensive cars anyway what is the point?

 

[Crude Abolitionist]

I am curious where are they getting these loans from? A bank or simple 2 bit dealership with massive interest?

Heard of much similar going on in other places...especially cats with these 500-600 monthly 48 month car loans.

Bingo

 

[King of Creampies]

Bingo

No fukking wonder. Seriously.

That is a easy easy way to put people in jail over defaulting a car loan.

I can tell you because YEARS ago I was there in dire situations

 

[Knowledge]

Yep It makes no damn since. Like why do people want expensive cars anyway what is the point?

You already know why breh. To stunt like they got it and act like they better than the next person.

On another note, Birdman needs to leave the country asap lol

 

[Crude Abolitionist]

You already know why breh. To stunt like they got it and act like they better than the next person.

On another note, Birdman needs to leave the country asap lol

You right.

 

[DonMakavelli]