Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation

[zerozero]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/u...profit.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share&pagewanted=all

CHILDERSBURG, Ala. — Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked.

When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed — charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that “two can dine for $5.99,” is not about innocence.

It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.

“With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”

 

[88m3]

This needs to made stopped immediately and the companies and politics/legislators need to be fined and jailed.
Will it happen probably not, but we can dream.

 

[zerozero]

This needs to made stopped immediately and the companies and politics/legislators need to be fined and jailed.
Will it happen probably not, but we can dream.

I have a theory that's prompted by something I read in a new yorker article a while ago

I think there's a type of 'procedural whitewash' in american jurisdiction that enables high levels of cruelty as long as the supposed litmus tests for creating that circumstance for the person are passed

that is to say, the legal and philosophical perspective is so biased towards the analyzing appropriateness of the process as righteous that anything after the process itself gets short shrift in the analysis

thus you have a nation of weed smokers getting arrested for weed smoking ('well, it was against the law') and a nation of incarcerated inmates getting raped ('well, you shouldn't have done the crime') and things like this article about usurious fees landing people in prison for crimes that don't trigger prison time normally. as long as the paperwork is there it's all good.

 

[Serious]

charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company.

 

[Kuro]

'probation fee'????.,.'probation company'????......i didnt even know those things existed...

 

[88m3]

I have a theory that's prompted by something I read in a new yorker article a while ago

I think there's a type of 'procedural whitewash' in american jurisdiction that enables high levels of cruelty as long as the supposed litmus tests for creating that circumstance for the person are passed

that is to say, the legal and philosophical perspective is so biased towards the analyzing appropriateness of the process as righteous that anything after the process itself gets short shrift in the analysis

thus you have a nation of weed smokers getting arrested for weed smoking ('well, it was against the law') and a nation of incarcerated inmates getting raped ('well, you shouldn't have done the crime') and things like this article about usurious fees landing people in prison for crimes that don't trigger prison time normally. as long as the paperwork is there it's all good.

A lot of judges and district attorneys are politically ambitious and in more cases than I care to admit feel as they have a higher calling(Christianity). Considering most judges are in their late 50's + in my experience tend to spring from conservative, privileged backgrounds it doesn't come as a surprise to people familiar with the goings on. Of course they despise marijuana, any weakness, not being able to pull ones self up by the boot straps. It's all "fire and brimstone" Old Testament style judgements. They were raised in the time of Christianity(everyone went to church), WW-2, the Korean War, Communism, Nam, ultra conservatism etc. It's an extremely cruel system by modern standards that creates a cycle of debt, stigmatizes people to the community and creates a cycle of re-imprisonment.

And of coruse the political overclass plays by a different set of rules for themselves and their families like anywhere else.


America is a police state

 

[newworldafro]

Constitution??? Bill of Rights??? .................. ..................................

 

[Spatial Paradox]

Debtors' prisons are what's hot in the 21st century?

Seems like this country's backsliding into the 19th century in some ways

 

[88m3]

Debtors' prisons are what's hot in the 21st century?

Seems like this country's backsliding into the 19th century in some ways

More than some ways, have you been following what's happening in the south the last 10 years (besides this), I swear they will start burning witches soon.

 

[ItalianoCAC]

This whole system is set up to make as much money as possible.

I was on probation once for 3 years...and after about a year, I paid off all of my court fees, fines, restitution...after that my PO got the rest of my probation time terminated...lol, and I had 2 years to go.

Greedy b*stards, they just wanted that bread...they didnt want to see my face every month, smh