Though many of the lawsuits filed did not explicitly mention race, most of them were filed in jurisdictions with large communities of color. The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather with the management and control of the dispossessed.
She pled guilty to the charge. On March 11, , a New Orleans police officer pulled over a car due to a broken taillight. After checking her identification, the officer told Cain he had to take her to jail because of her pending arrest warrant. Once in court, Cain explained to the judge that she did not have a job and could not come up with the money.
Cain did not have a bank account, a car, or other significant assets. Along with five other victims of similar treatment, Cain filed a class action suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on September 21, Equal Justice Under the Law followed suit with Mitchell v.
City of Montgomery in March These lawsuits claimed that the City of Montgomery was illegally jailing its residents for being too poor to pay off their criminal justice debt, which often resulted from traffic tickets.
City of Ferguson [27] and Jenkins, et al. Benton County in Washington on October 6, , [34] Bell, et al. City of Jackson on October 9, in Mississippi, [35] and Kennedy, et al. City of Biloxi on October 21, in Mississippi. City of Saint Ann, et al. City of Florissant in Few of the lawsuits filed explicitly mention race, [39] but most of them are filed in jurisdictions with large communities of color. City of New Orleans, No. Times Sept. City of New Orleans, supra note 2, at 9.
A judicial expense fund is a special cost imposed on criminal defendants in Louisiana in order to fund the administration of the criminal justice system. See LA. City of New Orleans, supra note 2, at City of Jackson, No.
Miss Oct. City of Jennings, No. Benton County, No. See infra Part II. City of Montgomery, No. City of Ferguson, No. On December 14, , the court approved a settlement agreement in which the City of Jennings agreed to compensate individuals who were incarcerated for failing to pay fines and fees. See Settlement Agreement, Jenkins v. Post Mar. Times Mar. On March 8, , the Macomb County Circuit Court entered a final order requiring Judge Gerds to stop incarcerating indigent defendants who fail to pay court fees and fines before first determining whether they have the ability to pay.
City of Alexander, supra note City of New Orleans, supra note 2. Benton County, supra note City of Jackson, supra note City of Biloxi, No. City of Sherwood, No. City of Saint Ann, No. City of Florissant, No. City of Florissant and Thomas v. City of Saint Ann —both filed by the ArchCity Defenders—are some of the very few complaints that explicitly mention race and the disproportionate impact of criminal justice debt on people of color.
Sherwood is in fact one of the very few complaints that acknowledges the race of its complainants. Nakita Rochelle Lewis is a year old black woman. Lee Andrew Robertson is a year old black man.
Sherwood, supra note 37, at 6—8. The War on Drugs refers to a set of antidrug policies and initiatives that the federal government enacted in the s to end the use of illegal drugs.
These policies and initiatives place an emphasis on incarcerating individuals—notably people and communities of color—for drug-related crimes. See infra Part III. Blackmon, Slavery By another Name 63—69 For more on the history of the leasing system and racial exploitation, see Ian F. Reported street crime quadrupled, and homicide rates nearly doubled.
Only now, he says, fines and fees add up to thousands of dollars. And even when they get behind in trying to pay, they go to jail. QuickFacts , U. Ann Carson, U. Wright, Mercenary Criminal Justice , U. For instance, there is empirical support for the common anecdotal observation that police departments use traffic fines to generate revenue for local government coffers. Recent controversy has swirled around aggressive towing for parking violations and traffic light cameras that generate automatic citations and large amounts of revenue.
City of Montgomery, supra note 24, at 1. Benton County, supra note 21, at 2. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. But this comic explains how it exists under a certain guise in America today.
Joyce Rice is a cartoonist, news designer, and professor making comics about history, technology, and the future. Kevin Moore is a writer, programmer, and progressive activist.
Debtors' prisons impose devastating human costs. They lead to coercive debt collection, forcing poor people to forgo the basic necessities of life in order to avoid arrest and jailing.
Debtors' prisons waste taxpayer money and resources by jailing people who may never be able to pay their debts. This imposes direct costs on the government and further destabilizes the lives of poor people struggling to pay their debts and leave the criminal justice system behind. And most troubling, debtors' prisons create a racially-skewed, two-tiered system of justice in which the poor receive harsher, longer punishments for committing the same crimes as the rich, simply because they are poor.
Ultimately, debtors' prisons are not only unfair and insensible, they are also illegal. Imprisoning someone because she cannot afford to pay court-imposed fines or fees violates the Fourteenth Amendment promises of due process and equal protection under the law.
The ACLU and ACLU affiliates are uncovering how debtors' prisons across the country undermine the criminal justice system and threaten civil rights and civil liberties.
We are working in state legislatures and courts, and with judicial officials to end these practices once and for all. It shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts, creating a racially-skewed, two-tiered system of justice that violates the basic constitutional rights of poor people.
The report documents the realities of today's debtors' prisons, and provides state and local governments and courts with recommendations for pursuing sensible and fair approaches to collecting criminal justice debt. ACLU affiliates across the country have launched campaigns exposing courts that illegally and improperly jail people too poor to pay criminal justice debt, and seeking reform through public education, advocacy, and litigation.
In this process, indigent people who cannot afford to pay court fines and fees are routinely incarcerated in violation of their constitutional rights. Read More. State law allows the Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend the licenses of people who have willfully failed to pay these fines and fees, but most California traffic courts do not give drivers a meaningful opportunity to prove that their failure to pay is due to poverty, rather than willful non-compliance.
The statewide lawsuit was filed on behalf of drivers who have had their drivers licenses suspended in violation of their statutory, due process, and equal protection rights. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of laws were passed that did enable a proportion of debtors to be released if they fulfilled certain conditions. Elsewhere in the world, though, the system persists in various forms.
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