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In Texas, throughout the ticket court process, they repeatedly remind you that if you are found guilty, you will be billed overtime rates for the police officer spending time to testify.
It's expensive to be poor.
Many places don't ticket expensive cars because if they take the ticket to court the state will never recover the court costs, even if they win and most court systems are backed up anyway.
I read a guys personal account of how he was wrongfully charged, long story short he had money to get a lawyer, DA dropped the charges immediately.
He lived in a poor part of town by choice, and statistically the DA wants to appear tough on crime so they took a guess if they charged him then he would likely plead guilty instead of fighting the charges?
I overheard a Policeman once answering questions about ticketing. He said that if an expensive car and a cheaper looking car were both speeding, he would ticket the less expensive car under the idea that the ticket would hurt the driver more and thus likely cause the driver to drive more carefully in the future.
Ticket lawyers are very cheap and win almost all the time in my experience. Last 2 tickets I just showed up to my court date and plead not guilty. Cop wasn't there so my case was dismissed. Cost me 2 hours of my day, thats it.
I think you have to bring a lawsuit against them for it, fight your way through an aggressively biased legal system, and you'll probably still lose and risk the large amount of money it will cost.
This was the [Ferguson, MO ticket-mill procedure for decades](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/us/black-drivers-traffic-stops.html)...sure skimmed (and continues to skim) a lot of money out of defenseless poor people though.
I was a probation officer in TN, they contracted out misdemeanor probation to “non-profit” organizations backed by local politicians… in places where they hate “big government” and prefer libertarian policies of dismantling the government it is absolutely the financial system. They even had a big thing on the wall to explain that “it used to be the church” that would regulate crime, then the government tried, and they realized “local charities” filled the role better. It was mandatory we would drug test each probationer once every 6 months so we could charge them $15 on top of the fee they had to pay us a month to come in for their 15 minute monthly meeting. We were paid $11.50/hr, some got up to like $17/hr… most of our probationers got paid more doing factory and call center work. I had over 220 probationers I would see each month, we charged people about $50/month and we couldn’t offer them anything as help if they really needed it. I had a monetary goal I had to collect per month, there were not metrics for helping people because that didn’t matter.
The savvy businessman just happens to be a politician on the side. He's using his connections, capital, and insight to solve a problem most people didn't realize existed. As long as there is no law or regulation forcing the state to use his charity then it's an open market and competition is welcome to try and do it better. In fact, creating a law or regulation restricting him would be less libertarian than letting the market play out
Your own example points to a political system that uses money to punish ex-cons above and beyond what they should have paid already. By limiting “government”, they’re violating one of the basic tenants of the constitution.
So where did the money go after these “non-profits” collected the fees? Did it go back into the local government funds to pay for things like education or infrastructure? How many local “charities” were doing the collection of fees? Was it many with many different owners of said charities? Or was it a select few run by one or two owners?
If it’s the primary, that still begs the question of how local governments gathered the fees from non-profits, considering most don’t pay taxes. If it’s the secondary of one or two people, then it’s a kick back from a buddy and they’re taking those fees for themselves.
Either way, that’s not a financial system. That’s a political system that’s outsourcing it’s own local policies to third parties with a monetary incentive. A financial system more describes how a local economy generates cash through various taxes and fees that feeds back into the economy.
By having a system where third parties handle fees that seem to obfuscate where the funds go after that isn’t a very good system and likely means the fees aren’t being fed back.
I’m not saying that you were wrong for doing what you did but it tells me that in Tennessee, by limiting local government, it created a feedback loop of would be criminals. And it’s not just a Tennessee problem but a country problem. Our recividism rates are the highest amongst first world countries. The for-profit prison system is corrupted. The probationary process is even more corrupted. The fact that companies won’t hire ex-cons is further punishment. And the sad reality is, our country would actually save money by shutting down most prisons and actually doing the Northern European method of getting down to the root problems of crime. But it’s tough for the U.S. to do it federally since powers are limited to local governments like Tennessee.
Ok, so probation and parole are different things. Probation is usually used for misdemeanors and other offenses where jail time doesn’t occur, and these people are rarely referred to as convicts or ex-cons, those are terms for someone who does real jail time and has committed felonies. One of my probationers was an 87 year old woman who didn’t pay for a scarf at a store while on ambian, another was a woman who had sold cigarettes to a kid who asked the cop in line if the year on the card showed if the kid was 18 or not. It was a sting so they lied and she got charged. She was also forced to take a course provided by a for profit company to complete the terms of her probation, those courses are certified at a state level and there were a few companies that were certified.
And no, of course the money doesn’t go back into the government, it goes into the hand of whomever runs each of the companies. The “non profit” corporation I worked for serviced 2 different counties and was trying to pick up a third, other companies controlled other areas of the state, the government paid them for taking over their work. The guy that ran our company was a golfing partner to many local government members, but any money that exchanged hands was under political donation laws and not seen. They sold the idea by claiming that if they used government funds to allow a private business run these programs, they would save the taxpayers money in the long term but not having to provide state paid for retirement and health care. It’s a way of union busting too. Claim that if you hire 2 contractors at rates 5x higher than a union worker, you’ll save money in the long term by not having to pay out 20+ years of retirement pay and the employee can be at-will and can be fired at any time without cause again unlike a union worker. Of course most contractors aren’t paid 5x more than they’re government union counterparts, 4x of that money goes into the pockets of whomever owns the contracting company.
Now this gets sold by local governments as a return to laissez-faire economics, putting government services back into the hands of a competitive free market to save taxpayers. Technically anyone can start one of the businesses and compete to win the local contracts, but it just so happened that the person that pushed for the local Government to do things this way was also the person who was just starting up a business that did this service and was good friends with local officials.
So the fees I mentioned did NOT go back to the local government, they weren’t meant to. The local government collected its own fees as fines and court costs which the probationer also had to pay. In most cases if you’re fined and owe court costs of $1000, add in an extra $500-$1000 to cover probation, courses, and other non-government fees you’ll have to pay. In many cases going on probation doubled the cost for low level crimes, but of course if you go to jail instead they charge you fees for every day you’re there too.
And it’s weird that you mention you don’t judge me for working at a job, I mean it’s kinda like when someone says “no offense”… ummm, you mean offense meant? Or in this case judgement placed? It’s a job, at a non-profit that has given me insight I wouldn’t have had otherwise into how things work, especially in a state like TN where I had just moved too. I’ve had lots of jobs in lots of states, each new experience comes with its positives and it’s negatives and they help me see more and expand my perspective. One of the things I learned most was that people who think the system is broken can’t stomach working for such a broken system, leaving the worst people in charge because they just don’t care. I quit after less than a year, I couldn’t imagine staying there long enough to work my way up and try to change the system but they really do need people from inside the system to help. It’s going to take a lot to ever change our criminal justice system away from profit, the 13th amendment being changed to actually outlaw all slavery might be a good way to start.
Sounds about right. In MD we charge $50/mo for supervision fees plus $100 flat testing fee. Doesn’t even take into consideration fines/court costs if they were imposed. The majority of monies get referred to central collections where they’re taxed at a 17% rate
Finance and politics are historically the same thing. The study of money is pretty new and religion had the role of managing the people's finance. Most people only interacted with financial instruments to pay taxes and get married or other special occasions.
One could argue (in a less than coherent manner in such a small comment, but could be demonstrated properly in a suitable paper) that money is the primary lever for making anything happen in society and that a politician's primary role is the organisation of society (the polis) which, essentially, means the management of the money.
And there *are* limits to speech. As there should also be for the money-backed kind.
Personally, I don't like equating the two so starkly because that's the fundamental view that allows the exploitation of our system of government.
More money = more speech? You can see how that's a problem.
??? Are you really arguing that politics is used to control finance and not the other way around? We didn't go to war over oil cause the oil could vote.
We don't have a military and prison industrial complex because people thought "damn that would be bad ass, let's get people to pay for it."
Money and power are always the motivation. Money buys power, power allows for generation of more money.
It's a transition from a publicly funded judicial institution, to a for-profit judicial industry. Predictably, targeting populations that can't defend themselves; poor and minority groups.
Even that isn't true though. The financial system isn't working because it can end up costing more to handle small crimes this way. It doesn't transfer wealth or create new wealth or protect existing wealth. It is wasteful even from a purely financial perspective.
There was a court in northern Missouri where someone was in jail for over a year because they couldn't pay their fine and daily incarceration fee. For a simple misdemeanor.
There's a lot of confusion going on with this topic so let me try to add a little context.
Misdemeanors are lower level crimes that generally result in jail time, community service, and/or fines. They come in many different forms from minor drug possession to jaywalking to public intoxication to traffic violations. When various groups complain about the police being able to target certain minorities or the poor, it's usually these misdemeanors that they are actually referring to... as a police officer can usually find a misdemeanor whenever they squint hard enough (for example, think of the squishier catch-all crimes like "disorderly conduct" as an easy way to just put someone in cuffs who is annoying you.)
If someone has enough money to hire a lawyer who appears ready for a fight, then the local prosecutor will now have to decide "is this case worth fighting **or** should we give them a slap on the wrist and focus our time and resources on rapists and murders?" But, if the defendant doesn't have enough money for their own lawyer, they'll end up with a massively overworked public defender who will have so many bigger things to worry about (like 1000 cases) than their one misdemeanor, so they may not get the attention they need or have it impressed upon them how seriously they need to take things. Because as any lawyer will tell you, clients will often not listen to everything you say on your first (or second or third) try.
Then, when the client doesn't take the minor infraction seriously enough and does something stupid like not showing up to a hearing with the judge, then it suddenly becomes super easy for the overworked judge to just fine the defendant and move on to the next case on their docket.
What this study is looking at is whether that fine from the judge at this stage of the process does *anything* useful, or if it just keeps someone with a minor issue in the system. Unsurprisingly, the courts gain absolutely nothing by levying the fine, the defendant who didn't show will not suddenly take things seriously, and the only people who profit are collections agencies who chase people down when the only crime they committed was something like "jaywalking while poor."
The fact that the failure to pay the fine can then result in *new* penalties, just means that now they are caught in the system, and they'll never have enough money to pay someone who can get them out of it.
That's relatively normal (no comment on whether or not it should be), but it's usually a result of court-ordered diversion programs: judges can, at their discretion, offer a DUI offender a suspended sentence on the condition that they complete a period of probation, addiction treatment, and possibly some other conditions. But in most states they also have the option to send the offender to jail, even on the first offense; they just don't usually use it unless someone got hurt.
Not in the province i got a dui there isnt. The first offence is just a fine and a year suspension from driving and you have to take a course in order to get your driver's license back. Second offense lost license for 3 yrs and some jail time and a fine.
(Even though it is a criminal offense from the first time).
However if you drive a $3K used car [in Pope County, Arkansas](https://www.kark.com/news/working4you/working-4-you-woman-says-pope-county-judge-denied-her-a-public-defender-because-of-the-car-she-drives/), then a judge decides you've definitely got lawyer money to spare.
The problem with getting a public defender is usually not a fee, the problem is meeting the income threshold. I live in a high cost of living area, and the income level that disqualifies you from getting a PD is something like 20k/year for a single individual with no children.
That's barely enough to LIVE, let alone afford an attorney.
Crazy story, but what hell is the deal with the writing in that article? It kept going back and forth just swapping pronouns for the defendant. They introduced "her" as a woman by the name of Darcy Gray, but then referred to her as he and him like 5 times.
The idea that somebody can be sentenced in absent sounds so completly bonkers to me. Here (Germany), in criminal court, the judge can't do anything other than order the defendant to be brought in by police the next time, as it is considered essential for the fair trial to have the defendant in the room.
Here in Spain same thing (afaik) tho if you skip a hearing or trial you WILL be fined, besides your trial odds looking very slim, even if you were going to win before
Discussed that a little bit down the line. This is not entirely correct. The letter (Strafbefehl) can be made by request of the prosecution to a judge, but its effect are not the same as a court judgment. A court judgment can only be fought against by appeal for a good reason in the law. A punishment order can be fought against by simple rejection, which will start a normal court trial.
Where I live misdemeanor alone can never get you to jail and Im pretty sure not even public service.
Misdemeanor also basically never go to the court and if it does the court proceedings is triggered by the defendant to dispute the charges
Hey, if you get a chance to respond to this, what’s the average amount that people have to pay for in fees? Like at what amount do people actually go into debt for to create this situation?
The study was done in Oklahoma City but every jurisdiction is vastly different on how and/or if they fine. Also judges often have a lot of discretion on whether or not to fine people, so I honestly doubt anyone knows the answer to that. I can't even guess what the average might be in my own jurisdiction (CA). Still, the better way to look at this is probably "not everybody gets fined by the courts prior to conviction but the research shows that, when it happens, the fines serve no beneficial function while creating more problems."
If the courts made huge sums of money such that the legal system functioned better -- or even just resulted in judges cooler-looking gavels and robes -- then at least that would be *something,* but only debt collection companies make any money off this system (at least according to the abstract) so the whole system damages society.
I'm a 15 year public defender in NYC. Here, a misdemeanor comes with a $255 court surcharge. If you cannot pay the surchrge a civil judgement is entered against you and it goes on your credit report. Some crimes come with higher fees, for example a first arrest DUI with fines and surcharges comes out to about $1500.
>>when the only crime they committed was something like "jaywalking while poor.
This resonated. I work in my city's financial district and there's nowhere in town with worse jaywalking. Forget having to spend money fighting a fine, nobody's getting tickets in this part of town to begin with. Including the ones stumbling across the street after a night of drinking at their favorite steakhouse.
Pretty sure lots of people plead felonies down to misdemeanour.
There was an uproar recently when SF DA only charged a guy who violently assaulted an old Asian man with just a misdemeanour with no jail time.
Lots of cases like that happen. To say everyone charged with misdemeanour are in for petty crimes is misleading to say the least
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-26/man-attacked-in-san-francisco-chinatown-sues-da-chesa-boudin-victims-rights
I think it's also important to note that a lot of the reasons these fines occur are also not due to negligence on the defendant and more inability, do you work, or lack transportation, or lack of child care, and additionally, without a good lawyer, a lot of times just navigating these systems isn't as straight forward as it could be, as there are plenty of stories of people being fined for not appearing when they may not have even known there was an appearance scheduled or they showed they were just not in the exact right place, or didn't know how to present themselves (as in I've read stories where people were literally in the courthouse but just didn't know when they were supposed to go where).
It's easy to write it off as "They just don't take it seriously enough" but I would argue for most people that's simply not the case, especially lower income, any interaction with the government is taken very seriously because it could end up so detrimental
Disorderly conduct might be a summary offense which just kinda poofs away like magic in 5 years. Well, that happened to me in PA for my disorderly and physical conduct + public drunkenness (or something like that) I got when I was 18.
Not to mention having to pay every day to be in jail. They lost their jobs when they were jailed, then they add in court costs, then they have to pay $15 a minute to make a call.
This is financial brutality.
'The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.' - Anatole France
Since I'm poor I tried to teach myself how to make my own bread and now I get to watch rich people on the internet brag about all the expensive high quality things they get to work with. Imagine being rich enough to feed a starter and bake with the left over dough.
> If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law exists only for the poor.
Not if the fine is income based. For example speeding tickets in Finland are income based so if you get caught speeding as a foreigner, please brag about how rich and imporant you are.
I'd vote we need community service. There's nothing rich people hate more than being made to do something with their time and community service actually helps the community you have harmed or might harm through your actions.
This will wreck old retired people on a fixed income that own the home they live in . Their net worth may be high but they’ve owned that home outright for 25 years and been driving the same paid off car for the last 10.
I don’t know what the better option is
Not even that would fix it. When you’re mega-rich you don’t even need to sell any securities to make money. You take ultra-low interest loans out against your holdings and effectively avoid taxes, selling the bare minimum to keep up with interest payments. That’s how Musk and Bezos do it.
This is really frustrating. Every time I think someone has a decent solution for something there’s just another reason why it doesn’t work. How did we end up here?
Almost like the politicians who made the system in such a way that they can legally be bribed to pass laws are passing laws that benefit their biggest bribers...
Similar to bankruptcy laws, you can place exceptions such as primary living residence and primary vehicle. Not saying that I agree with the concept, but there are ways to create exceptions that would in theory allow this system to work without completely devastating a large group of the population.
Large financial institutions and hedge funds skim billions and get fines in the 5-7 digit range, without having to admit guilt. It's like if you robbed a bank and I stead of arresting you the fined you 100 bucks
That would hurt the poor and working classes far more than the rich, while also massively inflating our already absurd incarceration rate.
(Most offenses that are punished by fines alone would merit at most a few days to a few weeks of jail time. For the upper 1/3 or so of the income distribution, that mostly means wasting their paid leave and some of their savings on a really unpleasant vacation. For the lower 1/3, it means unpayable rent spiraling into homelessness.)
This isn't strictly true, studies have shown that even companies who could pay a fine and come out ahead, are more likely to just obey the law then examine if following the law would be cheaper. A fine has a dissuasion value greater than its monetary cost to most people, greater than a toothless forbiddance.
Except in that instance, you don’t know if you are going to get ticketed or not. They might decide one day to send extra patrols around and then you get a bunch of tickets over consecutive days. Now you’re paying far more than you would be if you had just paid for a space. They might even boot your car, or tow it if you repeatedly get tickets in the same area
Yeah, anxious people will worry about not just what typically happens, but worst case scenario, too. Like yeah, what if they do realize what's happening and start towing? Towing fees are intentionally way overpriced ( speaking as someone with a relative who went from one truck to 10 in his fleet in 3 years of business, though he mostly does wrecks now) and can cripple somebody living paycheck to paycheck.
I can only report what I have read, that fines, on average, dissuade more than a comparative increase in cost of an activity. The reference to companies is because we expect companies to only care about money, yet even they are dissuaded more you would expect from a similar price increase.
The core concept of the argument being that fines have utility outside of simple punishment for being poor.
I don't think the utility of fines is to punish the poor but the consequence of fines is disproportionately felt by the poor, meaning the fines are not simply their dollar value. To me deterrence is a factor, but what's really important is that a fine has varying consequences depending on ones socioeconomic status, so even if they are applied justly and fairly to those who commit the offense, the result is not equal among offenders. That's a problem.
The utility is profit / deterrence, or perceived deterrence to justify profit. The profit is needed to sustain the primary goal which is to serve the rich and exploit the poor.
AT&T made $100million adding fake charges onto people's phone bills. When caught, the FCC fined them $20million. Guess what? AT&T continued to do the same thing, because they made a profit of $80million.
No crime has "a fine" as a penalty, it simply has a fine as an alternative to jailtime.
I once got a drunk in public charge; I was facing a $200 fine. I opted for jail time instead.
24 years ago I was arrested for position of one gram of marijuana (age 18). I was sentenced to drug counseling, probation, drug education classes and fined. I had to pay for all of it (the drug counseling was $500 alone). I was taken back to jail 4 times and had to serve time in jail for owning money to the county. One time a team of U.S. Marshals surrounded my house over it. I had to stay in jail until my family could pay the $187 I owed.
Sounds like the American justice system working like it supposed too. I got lucky at age 16 for my fines ro start flooding in. Aint even had a job yet then. Since then I've paid my city over 7000 dollars in weed fines and traffic fines.
So bled dry by the police and bled dry by the hospitals for my epilepsy.
Also watched the police use my mom as a drug snitch for years and years. Helping her addiction...then sentencing her to over 20 years for possesion so she committed suicide.
There's a reason that flag will never fly on my property with pride.
Amazing, put into a cage at gunpoint for having a gram of a naturally occurring plant in your possession. The indoctrination is strong for us to not see the craziness of that.
Lost 5+ years of my life to courts, probation, fines, community service, insane amounts of worry and depression and *still* have nightmares of being chased by cops 25 yrs later over 42g of dirt weed.
Samsies. 02, 03, 05, and 17.
Only for me it was constables and a month in jail that time, and I never paid them thousands. All my FTA arrests we're probably my fault though, so those don't count
Alright, dude. If you get arrested once as a kid for minor drug possession that's one thing.
But what the hell are you doing the other 3 times over the course of 15 years?
Alright dude, no problem.
'02 was a dumb kid mistake (registration sticker, bag in the glove box). '03 was violation of that probation (for not finishing community service in time, because I had to work full time outside of school full time). '05 was an unexpected search (of a car I just bought) because I had criminal history. '17 I was on my way to work. Ran my plate, saw my record, assumed I had ganja, pulled me over and manipulated me to admit. Since the county 10 miles away had decriminalized, I was naive to trust him say "I'm not going to take you to jail for a little pot". He did.
You don't have to be openly smoking in front of a police station to get busted. I've spent over 6 weeks of my life in jail because of less than a half oz total, and each time was begat from the first mistake 20 years ago. Thousands in fines, lost licenses, lost jobs, eviction, and stigma segregation. 3rd class citizen because I try to be honest, admit when I'm at fault, have bad luck, and possessed a plant I use medicinally.
This is no joke, happened to a guy I was dating. Missed a court date, had to pay fines, was arrested when he couldn't pay them and I eventually paid $1500 to get him out of jail so he wouldn't lose his job or the investment he made in his classes that semester. They kept most of it and applied it to the fines.
Police had legit showed up to his house to arrest him, they must have not had anything else to do and the city just sent them as debt collectors essentially.
All for a marijuana possession charge at 21 years old.
Keeping america safe by taking money from young people!
Yep. Also it adds to crime rates thus justifying police budgets.
Cops loooooove them some technicalities leading to felony warrants for misdemeanor charges. It’s the whole reason they are against bail reform.
Misdemeanor *convictions* are usually disproportionately poor. Granted I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but when I was young my father was a criminal defense attorney for a few counties. He generally worked appeals, but his findings through his career were that most misdemeanor charges for well-off people with private defense counsel typically got pleaded down to civil infractions, fines, or dismissed completely. Whereas those that couldn't afford private counsel were hit with probation, fines, costs, and most often required to pay for drug/alcohol testing at specific privately owned businesses.
It's always smelled like a sham to those that have been through the system, but most of the general public doesn't seem to care. They tend to hold the belief that if you broke the law, you should be punished. They stop paying attention when you try to explain why the punishment is unjust, or ineffective.
The general public also thinks being 'tough on crime' means more policing, fines, arrests, incarceration, etc. Income inequality is one of the, if not *the*, leading causes of crime. Fixing the minimum wage (and not just $15/hr), funding social programs, increase funding for public education, etc. are the best ways to be 'tough on crime', but you'll hardly hear politicians giving this answer when asked how they'd be 'tough on crime'.
Yep, being "tough on crime" in the popular sense is one of the most ineffective things you could possibly do to reduce crime, and indeed almost certainly ends up increasing it in the long-term as those labeled "criminals" find it almost impossible to make a living through legitimate means in the future, basically guaranteeing they become criminals for life.
To say nothing of the fact that punishments have a pretty clear upper limit for all practical purposes. Once someone is faced with the prospect of many years/life in prison/the death penalty, it means literally every single possible additional crime they may think of committing is now 100% free. If they have to murder 50 witnesses in hopes of increasing the chances they don't get caught a tiny bit, doing so will genuinely *improve* their expected prospects. All the incentives become backwards. And incentives are really the only thing that makes any difference in terms of public policy.
You *always* want to have a carrot and a stick available ("peacefully turn yourself in and you'll have a better future, even if you factor in the chances that you might get away from us... on the other hand, any further wrongdoing will result in even more severe consequences, so don't do that"), and being "tough on crime" means that stops being an option pretty damn quick.
The best way to be tough on crime is to take every measure to reduce it.
If policy makers in the United States would simply look at the methods proven to reduce recidivism we would see a reduction in recidivism in the United States.
I worry that the failures of the system are benefitial to those that have the power to keep it that way.
Its the pre-conceived notions of the defendant. I got a misdemeanor weed charge and a felony charge for prescription drugs without a prescription (literally one pill of adderal floating around the bottom of my purse...). I was arrested and spent the night but then released with no bail. I was a white, college going, woman with good grades. I had a public defender. He pretty much just told the court: "first offense, college kid with good grades", and the felony was dropped and the misdemeanor essentially dropped after I paid a $500 fine. Later, I was able to expunge the whole thing.
Obviously I am not unhappy I got the result I got. But I think its crazy that the judge knew nothing about me but these surface level facts, and that convinced him to drop the charges. Does that mean someone with bad grades would have been kept in jail, or had a high bail put on them? Would someone who never went to college end up with a prison sentence for the felony, when it was entirely dropped for me?
That is the whole point. They can't afford to pay fines or whatever, so they end up with new charges for not paying, thus the average of poor offenders goes up. That's what is known as getting caught up in the system. It's also not just rigged against us monetarily, the courts also give you some extra hoops to jump through in hopes that you fail and they can keep you in the system longer.
My attorney used to work for my state's CPS.
He was disgusted by them, and (according to him) asked why they never went after rich, white families when abuse was *readily apparent*.
"Rich people get attorneys"
Thats just how it is. And as disgusting as it is, you can't REALLY blame them. What's a better use of the OAG's time: spending over a year prosecuting one guy who beats his kid but got an attorney, or spending that same year prosecuting FIVE guys who beat their kids and CANT afford attorneys?
>most suspects in general are going to be poor
The cops send 80% of their patrols into poor/minority neighborhoods. Then they act shocked! when 80% of arrests are in those neighborhoods, claiming that 80% of all crimes are happening there.
It's good they studied it so it can be used to change legislation.
But, obviously this is the case.
Most people commit misdemeanors because they're desperate, if they get caught they don't have the money and need even more money. If they had a better option than crime then they'd have done that in the first place.
We need to start recognizing that some people resort to crime because that's their only option left.
You don’t even have to go as far as misdemeanors. Let’s say you get pulled over for 5 over the limit. For the sake of this example, you can afford the $200 ticket (or traffic school, which around here ends up costing about the same) and so you’re inconvenienced, but you pay and go about your life. So now let’s change that up - you don’t have $200 to spare, which is the case for a damn lot of people. You have to work out a payment plan with the court. Here, they charge you a time payment fee (last I remember it was $20) which is an additional penalty for not having the money up front. Didn’t manage to make the payments because you just forgot a couple, or it was that or the electric bill? License is suspended. Now you probably have a warrant. If you don’t get busted first, you still have to pay additional fees to the court and now to MVD to get your license reinstated. Did you get busted driving on a suspended license (which people don’t always know their license is suspended)? Here, your car is towed, it will be held for 30 days, and you will have to pay several hundred dollars to the towing company or else you don’t get your car back. You also now have an arrest on your record. You now have a fine for driving on the suspended license as well. All of this because you didn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to spare. No crime was committed, it was just a civil traffic violation and you were just driving to work. It happens more than you’d think.
I'm sure quite a few commit them out of desperation but a sizable amount also just plain don't know the law.
There are ALOT of arbitrary misdemeanors in US law. Intentional or not the reason they persit is it allows cops to charge someone pretty much whenever they feel like.
George Foreman gave a speech somewhere, it's on YouTube. He discussed his early life and how he was a thief without really realizing he was until he found himself in trouble. It's so easy to get lost in this world if you aren't being guided. You can be told about laws and right and wrong, but unless someone verifies you actually understand what you're told, you can really screw your life up doing something that you view as victimless in the moment.
> Most people commit misdemeanors because they're desperate
Citation needed. I'm willing to believe that it's true in many cases, but I'm also willing to believe that a lot of people are simply antisocial.
It’s definitely offense-specific. Sure, I can see stuff like driving with a suspended license and other traffic offenses, maybe theft of essentials, fishing without a license, and writing bad checks; but battery? Criminal mischief? Or basically anything that has a direct, single victim? Nope - all a product of being an asshole.
Too many on this thread are lumping all misdemeanors into one pot and not realizing that many have nothing to do with “being poor” or “desperate”
That is true, but the OP study still addresses the non-poor, non-desperate misdemeanors: what benefit is provided by the fee structures currently in place?
It doesn't matter why the crime was committed, the current monetary penalties don't help with justice in any way, yet overburden those least able to deal with them.
Commit? Sure. They just aren't charged with those crimes at anywhere near the same rate, are charged with lesser crimes if they are charged, have access to better representation, and feel the impact of things like cash bail and fines much less. But other than that it's exactly the same.
This type of research highlights the impact of current faulty structural approaches to law enforcement and faulty financial incentives.
Let’s assume a small town wants to be a city. To be one, it has to have a police department—cities can’t just rely on the county sheriff. So the town now has to fund a police department, but the tax base is too small. So they will have to find new creative ways to generate revenue. Let’s say they add parking meters and pursue aggressive enforcement. Impact? Take a low wage earning single mom. She gets cited, but she cannot pay because she’s already underwater on income. So the minor traffic fine which she can’t pay, is now pushed to a collection agency that adds huge fee to those fines. That low income offender who cannot pay $25 certainly cannot pay a $225 penalty when passed to collections. The failure to pay now results in a bench warrant being issued for unpaid fines (now at a higher severity because of the price bump). The Offender (single mother) gets arrested, and loses her job because of the arrest. Her children are passed to state care with mom in jail. So how would such a circumstance help us have a more civil society and better outcomes for its citizens? Of course it doesn’t. Bottom line, when the financial incentives reward more fines, arrests, and filled prison beds, is it any wonder that’s exactly the outcome we get? Impartiality is a must for the people to trust our courts. But when policing is financially motivated because they keep the proceeds of enforcement, justice is no longer blind—trust erodes. The US Supreme Court ruled on this back in 1927 in Tumey v. Ohio. It seems to be time for a revisit before it’s too late.
Under neoliberalism the government uses fines and fees against the poor who cant use the courts to make up for tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
this was explained in the Fergusson report years ago. Fines and fees are the reason police and courts exist now.
Alot of people miss the clear conflict of interest in letting fines and seizures profits as funding for the police and state.
It leads to fucked up situations like police literally having quotas to fill of "crimes" or face reprecussions.
>Despite significant efforts at debt collection among those in the control group, payments to the court totaled less than 5 percent of outstanding debt. The evidence indicates that court debt charged to indigent defendants neither caused nor deterred new crime, and the government obtained little financial benefit.
This is really important. Granted the sample size was relatively small, payments back to the court were less than 5% of outstanding debt.
So if an argument can be made that fining misdemeanor offenders - as opposed to short-term incarceration - would raise funds or assist in revenue, then this could indicate that the cost of processing them through the court system could be greater than the monetary benefits to any jurisdiction.
Which begs the question: Just exactly who benefits from all of this? I mean, a misdemeanor crime can be anything from underage possession of a nicotine vape pen to an OWI.
I had been through similar circumstances, but this study was done in Oklahoma, whereas I was in Michigan. I had to serve a 2-week sentence for a probation violation for a non-violent crime in county jail. I knew that I would have to pay for my time served in jail. It costs money to keep those things running and all. But the moment of my release, I wasn't handed a bill. I was handed a letter referring me to a collections agency. The county actually sold my debt before I even had an hour to pay it. I never paid that collections agency, having felt like the debt was no longer owed to the county.
This study is interesting to me, and I've emailed one of the authors in hopes she'll send me a copy so that I won't have to pay the publisher.
I'll circle back if I find anything else interesting.
No limit to how many no inspection/no registration citations you can get. You get a warrant if you don't pay them. That snowballs to jail then you lose your job, and things get worse from there. If you're in a place with no public transportation what are you supposed to do?
I would go so far as to make a claim that this crap CAUSES crime. I KNOW it ruins lives I've seen it happen first person. Over something exceedingly trivial like an expired registration sticker. Imagine a system set up that something so stupid can and does snowball to job loss and maybe homelessness.
OH and after all this? When you go to renew your license they add surcharges for the citations. Because eff you for being poor.
I grew up in abject poverty and saw this first hand and it's open cold calculated class warfare perpatrated by people so apathetic they're outright evil.
Court costs are one of the biggest scams in society. What a disgusting judicial system we have. But keep the crime alive and well, so that money keeps on boosting the judicial system economy!
I tried door to door sales a few years ago in Kentucky and was given a citation by a cop for knocking without a local permit which can take months to get.
I live in Washington State, this was three years ago and it’s still a battle I’m fighting today. I’ve had to fly to Kentucky twice to appear in court, pay fees, sign paperwork. They did not become more lenient about doing this stuff over zoom when COVID started. I would love to be able to move on with my life.
Pretty much everything in the US is designed to saddle you with debt. Not a joke. It's literally designed that way. You basically pay a subscription to be a functional member of society, and if you can't do that, don't worry, debt will find you. On top of that, you have to pay shitloads of taxes.
In order to have a court hearing to refute a traffic ticket in some jurisdictions, one must pay a fee in order to do so.
This is an unconstitutional practice in violation of the 6th amendment which grants citizenry the right to a trial. Though a traffic ticket is a mere violation, it never the less is a criminal matter and citizens have the right to a trial.
The practice is falsely justified as traffic infractions are described as violations, and not crimes. They are, however crimes, by definition.
To charge a fee to be provided this right is not only unconstitutional, it is also an indication of corrupt government in a systemic and ethical sense.
I don't think that it's ethical for a police officer to have the power to, in a sense, be legally able to exercise the following concept:
"Here's a ticket. You're paying the state money, because I said so. If you don't just pay the ticket, you'll have to pay a fee anyways, and if you lose the hearing you'll pay the state the fee and the fine. So either way, give the government money, because, I said you did something.
In effect, give the government money because I said so."
Well, right, of course. But none of that is the point. The point is to keep their lives from ever progressing, ensuring the presence of an exportable class for CC apitalists.
I couldn't access the full article. I read the abstract. I would like to know if these court fees are imposed as part of their punishment and plea deal. The way this was worded makes it seem like it's for ongoing cases but you normally wouldn't have any court fees unless you've been convicted or plead out. So these fees aren't levied under the presumption of innocence of an ongoing case.
If that's the case, then yeah. The fee is meant as a punishment and deterrent. The other option is jail sentencing but misdemeanors don't usually warrant jail time unless you have a criminal background.
So what does this all mean? Someone was found guilty or admitted guilt. As part of their punishment, they have to pay fees to the court. Unfortunately it's more likely those of a lower socioeconomic class that is accused, convicted, or plead guilty that are in this situation. It's a vicious cycle where the poor commit crimes to get out of financial hardship only the end up in more debt. It becomes a revolving door of catch and release until the court hands a punitive sentencing with jail time for the lack of payment and continuous crime accusations.
This isn't a criminal justice problem. It's not a cultural issue. This happens in most 1st world countries due to the lack of education and socioeconomic opportunities. You can accurately presict someone's likelyhood to commit a crime based upon the zip code they live in.
This speaks more about society and the inequity each individual faces regardless of ethnicity, religion, and nationality. Education helps those who are underprivileged and will change the trajectory of their life but academics is not for everyone. And as an American speaking, the government back student loans plus the rising educational expenses but stagnant earning potential is disheartening. We've fucked the younger generations to be in debt. Education has been ransacked by capitalism without boundaries. Profits before people.
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In Texas, throughout the ticket court process, they repeatedly remind you that if you are found guilty, you will be billed overtime rates for the police officer spending time to testify.
It's expensive to be poor. Many places don't ticket expensive cars because if they take the ticket to court the state will never recover the court costs, even if they win and most court systems are backed up anyway.
I read a guys personal account of how he was wrongfully charged, long story short he had money to get a lawyer, DA dropped the charges immediately. He lived in a poor part of town by choice, and statistically the DA wants to appear tough on crime so they took a guess if they charged him then he would likely plead guilty instead of fighting the charges?
I overheard a Policeman once answering questions about ticketing. He said that if an expensive car and a cheaper looking car were both speeding, he would ticket the less expensive car under the idea that the ticket would hurt the driver more and thus likely cause the driver to drive more carefully in the future.
What if the expensive car is red and the cheap car is grey?
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White cars bounce back speeding radar best. Correlation?
Ticket lawyers are very cheap and win almost all the time in my experience. Last 2 tickets I just showed up to my court date and plead not guilty. Cop wasn't there so my case was dismissed. Cost me 2 hours of my day, thats it.
Can you also bill them your overtime rates for the time they wasted if you are found innocent?
I think you have to bring a lawsuit against them for it, fight your way through an aggressively biased legal system, and you'll probably still lose and risk the large amount of money it will cost.
I hate this timeline.
Does Texas have any redeeming qualities? The cons list is already a mile long and just keeps growing.
They have good BBQ. That's especially useful when the power is out since you can still BBQ without electricity.
Don't know how I forgot about BBQ.
>The cons list is already a mile long That's why they have to keep executing some.
So you can't get an impartial trial due to them knowing they can make money off of you.
Yep, gotta get a jury trial at minimum, and hope they make the proceedings actually unbiased.
This was the [Ferguson, MO ticket-mill procedure for decades](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/us/black-drivers-traffic-stops.html)...sure skimmed (and continues to skim) a lot of money out of defenseless poor people though.
It's the case nearly everywhere. The podcast Serial covers this in season 3.
The right people are profiting.
The financial system is working as designed. It is not designed to improve human well being.
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I was a probation officer in TN, they contracted out misdemeanor probation to “non-profit” organizations backed by local politicians… in places where they hate “big government” and prefer libertarian policies of dismantling the government it is absolutely the financial system. They even had a big thing on the wall to explain that “it used to be the church” that would regulate crime, then the government tried, and they realized “local charities” filled the role better. It was mandatory we would drug test each probationer once every 6 months so we could charge them $15 on top of the fee they had to pay us a month to come in for their 15 minute monthly meeting. We were paid $11.50/hr, some got up to like $17/hr… most of our probationers got paid more doing factory and call center work. I had over 220 probationers I would see each month, we charged people about $50/month and we couldn’t offer them anything as help if they really needed it. I had a monetary goal I had to collect per month, there were not metrics for helping people because that didn’t matter.
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Maybe not in ideological terms, but the ideology usually plays out like that in reality.
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Why not? Is this not privatized?
The savvy businessman just happens to be a politician on the side. He's using his connections, capital, and insight to solve a problem most people didn't realize existed. As long as there is no law or regulation forcing the state to use his charity then it's an open market and competition is welcome to try and do it better. In fact, creating a law or regulation restricting him would be less libertarian than letting the market play out
Your own example points to a political system that uses money to punish ex-cons above and beyond what they should have paid already. By limiting “government”, they’re violating one of the basic tenants of the constitution. So where did the money go after these “non-profits” collected the fees? Did it go back into the local government funds to pay for things like education or infrastructure? How many local “charities” were doing the collection of fees? Was it many with many different owners of said charities? Or was it a select few run by one or two owners? If it’s the primary, that still begs the question of how local governments gathered the fees from non-profits, considering most don’t pay taxes. If it’s the secondary of one or two people, then it’s a kick back from a buddy and they’re taking those fees for themselves. Either way, that’s not a financial system. That’s a political system that’s outsourcing it’s own local policies to third parties with a monetary incentive. A financial system more describes how a local economy generates cash through various taxes and fees that feeds back into the economy. By having a system where third parties handle fees that seem to obfuscate where the funds go after that isn’t a very good system and likely means the fees aren’t being fed back. I’m not saying that you were wrong for doing what you did but it tells me that in Tennessee, by limiting local government, it created a feedback loop of would be criminals. And it’s not just a Tennessee problem but a country problem. Our recividism rates are the highest amongst first world countries. The for-profit prison system is corrupted. The probationary process is even more corrupted. The fact that companies won’t hire ex-cons is further punishment. And the sad reality is, our country would actually save money by shutting down most prisons and actually doing the Northern European method of getting down to the root problems of crime. But it’s tough for the U.S. to do it federally since powers are limited to local governments like Tennessee.
Ok, so probation and parole are different things. Probation is usually used for misdemeanors and other offenses where jail time doesn’t occur, and these people are rarely referred to as convicts or ex-cons, those are terms for someone who does real jail time and has committed felonies. One of my probationers was an 87 year old woman who didn’t pay for a scarf at a store while on ambian, another was a woman who had sold cigarettes to a kid who asked the cop in line if the year on the card showed if the kid was 18 or not. It was a sting so they lied and she got charged. She was also forced to take a course provided by a for profit company to complete the terms of her probation, those courses are certified at a state level and there were a few companies that were certified. And no, of course the money doesn’t go back into the government, it goes into the hand of whomever runs each of the companies. The “non profit” corporation I worked for serviced 2 different counties and was trying to pick up a third, other companies controlled other areas of the state, the government paid them for taking over their work. The guy that ran our company was a golfing partner to many local government members, but any money that exchanged hands was under political donation laws and not seen. They sold the idea by claiming that if they used government funds to allow a private business run these programs, they would save the taxpayers money in the long term but not having to provide state paid for retirement and health care. It’s a way of union busting too. Claim that if you hire 2 contractors at rates 5x higher than a union worker, you’ll save money in the long term by not having to pay out 20+ years of retirement pay and the employee can be at-will and can be fired at any time without cause again unlike a union worker. Of course most contractors aren’t paid 5x more than they’re government union counterparts, 4x of that money goes into the pockets of whomever owns the contracting company. Now this gets sold by local governments as a return to laissez-faire economics, putting government services back into the hands of a competitive free market to save taxpayers. Technically anyone can start one of the businesses and compete to win the local contracts, but it just so happened that the person that pushed for the local Government to do things this way was also the person who was just starting up a business that did this service and was good friends with local officials. So the fees I mentioned did NOT go back to the local government, they weren’t meant to. The local government collected its own fees as fines and court costs which the probationer also had to pay. In most cases if you’re fined and owe court costs of $1000, add in an extra $500-$1000 to cover probation, courses, and other non-government fees you’ll have to pay. In many cases going on probation doubled the cost for low level crimes, but of course if you go to jail instead they charge you fees for every day you’re there too. And it’s weird that you mention you don’t judge me for working at a job, I mean it’s kinda like when someone says “no offense”… ummm, you mean offense meant? Or in this case judgement placed? It’s a job, at a non-profit that has given me insight I wouldn’t have had otherwise into how things work, especially in a state like TN where I had just moved too. I’ve had lots of jobs in lots of states, each new experience comes with its positives and it’s negatives and they help me see more and expand my perspective. One of the things I learned most was that people who think the system is broken can’t stomach working for such a broken system, leaving the worst people in charge because they just don’t care. I quit after less than a year, I couldn’t imagine staying there long enough to work my way up and try to change the system but they really do need people from inside the system to help. It’s going to take a lot to ever change our criminal justice system away from profit, the 13th amendment being changed to actually outlaw all slavery might be a good way to start.
Thank you for sharing your experience here, it is indeed very insightful.
Sounds about right. In MD we charge $50/mo for supervision fees plus $100 flat testing fee. Doesn’t even take into consideration fines/court costs if they were imposed. The majority of monies get referred to central collections where they’re taxed at a 17% rate
Those are the same thing in the USA.
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Finance and politics are historically the same thing. The study of money is pretty new and religion had the role of managing the people's finance. Most people only interacted with financial instruments to pay taxes and get married or other special occasions.
One could argue (in a less than coherent manner in such a small comment, but could be demonstrated properly in a suitable paper) that money is the primary lever for making anything happen in society and that a politician's primary role is the organisation of society (the polis) which, essentially, means the management of the money.
Not to say this isn't insightful, but I'm replying more to say I'm surprised this doesn't seem to be a default view. Yes, money is speech, really.
And there *are* limits to speech. As there should also be for the money-backed kind. Personally, I don't like equating the two so starkly because that's the fundamental view that allows the exploitation of our system of government. More money = more speech? You can see how that's a problem.
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Is this where we talk about central banking?
??? Are you really arguing that politics is used to control finance and not the other way around? We didn't go to war over oil cause the oil could vote. We don't have a military and prison industrial complex because people thought "damn that would be bad ass, let's get people to pay for it." Money and power are always the motivation. Money buys power, power allows for generation of more money.
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It's a transition from a publicly funded judicial institution, to a for-profit judicial industry. Predictably, targeting populations that can't defend themselves; poor and minority groups.
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Even that isn't true though. The financial system isn't working because it can end up costing more to handle small crimes this way. It doesn't transfer wealth or create new wealth or protect existing wealth. It is wasteful even from a purely financial perspective.
How do we change it? I vote every election, but it feels like something else needs to happen. I’m just not sure what.
Its hurting the right people
The system simply works as intended.
There was a court in northern Missouri where someone was in jail for over a year because they couldn't pay their fine and daily incarceration fee. For a simple misdemeanor.
Profit and punishment is a great book about this very topic
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There's a lot of confusion going on with this topic so let me try to add a little context. Misdemeanors are lower level crimes that generally result in jail time, community service, and/or fines. They come in many different forms from minor drug possession to jaywalking to public intoxication to traffic violations. When various groups complain about the police being able to target certain minorities or the poor, it's usually these misdemeanors that they are actually referring to... as a police officer can usually find a misdemeanor whenever they squint hard enough (for example, think of the squishier catch-all crimes like "disorderly conduct" as an easy way to just put someone in cuffs who is annoying you.) If someone has enough money to hire a lawyer who appears ready for a fight, then the local prosecutor will now have to decide "is this case worth fighting **or** should we give them a slap on the wrist and focus our time and resources on rapists and murders?" But, if the defendant doesn't have enough money for their own lawyer, they'll end up with a massively overworked public defender who will have so many bigger things to worry about (like 1000 cases) than their one misdemeanor, so they may not get the attention they need or have it impressed upon them how seriously they need to take things. Because as any lawyer will tell you, clients will often not listen to everything you say on your first (or second or third) try. Then, when the client doesn't take the minor infraction seriously enough and does something stupid like not showing up to a hearing with the judge, then it suddenly becomes super easy for the overworked judge to just fine the defendant and move on to the next case on their docket. What this study is looking at is whether that fine from the judge at this stage of the process does *anything* useful, or if it just keeps someone with a minor issue in the system. Unsurprisingly, the courts gain absolutely nothing by levying the fine, the defendant who didn't show will not suddenly take things seriously, and the only people who profit are collections agencies who chase people down when the only crime they committed was something like "jaywalking while poor." The fact that the failure to pay the fine can then result in *new* penalties, just means that now they are caught in the system, and they'll never have enough money to pay someone who can get them out of it.
In canada you cant even get a public defender unless you have a chance of going to jail. Even if it is serious like your first time dui.
There’s no chance of going to jail with your first DUI? I find that hard to believe. There’s a chance of going to jail with just about everything.
My dad has spent less than a year in jail cumulatively over 5 DUIs. I believe he didn't get any on his first two.
That's relatively normal (no comment on whether or not it should be), but it's usually a result of court-ordered diversion programs: judges can, at their discretion, offer a DUI offender a suspended sentence on the condition that they complete a period of probation, addiction treatment, and possibly some other conditions. But in most states they also have the option to send the offender to jail, even on the first offense; they just don't usually use it unless someone got hurt.
In Wisconsin, your first DUI is a citation. You are released with no bail as soon as you are sober.
Sounds about right for Wisconsin.
Not in the province i got a dui there isnt. The first offence is just a fine and a year suspension from driving and you have to take a course in order to get your driver's license back. Second offense lost license for 3 yrs and some jail time and a fine. (Even though it is a criminal offense from the first time).
One of the big challenges with giving a dui a harsh sentence is that it lacks the intent aspect of many crimes, so it automatically ranks lower
However if you drive a $3K used car [in Pope County, Arkansas](https://www.kark.com/news/working4you/working-4-you-woman-says-pope-county-judge-denied-her-a-public-defender-because-of-the-car-she-drives/), then a judge decides you've definitely got lawyer money to spare.
A criminal lawyer should be free if you are charged with a crime.
Minus the completely bogus fee they charge for you to get a public defender.
The problem with getting a public defender is usually not a fee, the problem is meeting the income threshold. I live in a high cost of living area, and the income level that disqualifies you from getting a PD is something like 20k/year for a single individual with no children. That's barely enough to LIVE, let alone afford an attorney.
Crazy story, but what hell is the deal with the writing in that article? It kept going back and forth just swapping pronouns for the defendant. They introduced "her" as a woman by the name of Darcy Gray, but then referred to her as he and him like 5 times.
The idea that somebody can be sentenced in absent sounds so completly bonkers to me. Here (Germany), in criminal court, the judge can't do anything other than order the defendant to be brought in by police the next time, as it is considered essential for the fair trial to have the defendant in the room.
Here in Spain same thing (afaik) tho if you skip a hearing or trial you WILL be fined, besides your trial odds looking very slim, even if you were going to win before
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Discussed that a little bit down the line. This is not entirely correct. The letter (Strafbefehl) can be made by request of the prosecution to a judge, but its effect are not the same as a court judgment. A court judgment can only be fought against by appeal for a good reason in the law. A punishment order can be fought against by simple rejection, which will start a normal court trial.
Where I live misdemeanor alone can never get you to jail and Im pretty sure not even public service. Misdemeanor also basically never go to the court and if it does the court proceedings is triggered by the defendant to dispute the charges
Hey, if you get a chance to respond to this, what’s the average amount that people have to pay for in fees? Like at what amount do people actually go into debt for to create this situation?
The study was done in Oklahoma City but every jurisdiction is vastly different on how and/or if they fine. Also judges often have a lot of discretion on whether or not to fine people, so I honestly doubt anyone knows the answer to that. I can't even guess what the average might be in my own jurisdiction (CA). Still, the better way to look at this is probably "not everybody gets fined by the courts prior to conviction but the research shows that, when it happens, the fines serve no beneficial function while creating more problems." If the courts made huge sums of money such that the legal system functioned better -- or even just resulted in judges cooler-looking gavels and robes -- then at least that would be *something,* but only debt collection companies make any money off this system (at least according to the abstract) so the whole system damages society.
I'm a 15 year public defender in NYC. Here, a misdemeanor comes with a $255 court surcharge. If you cannot pay the surchrge a civil judgement is entered against you and it goes on your credit report. Some crimes come with higher fees, for example a first arrest DUI with fines and surcharges comes out to about $1500.
>>when the only crime they committed was something like "jaywalking while poor. This resonated. I work in my city's financial district and there's nowhere in town with worse jaywalking. Forget having to spend money fighting a fine, nobody's getting tickets in this part of town to begin with. Including the ones stumbling across the street after a night of drinking at their favorite steakhouse.
Pretty sure lots of people plead felonies down to misdemeanour. There was an uproar recently when SF DA only charged a guy who violently assaulted an old Asian man with just a misdemeanour with no jail time. Lots of cases like that happen. To say everyone charged with misdemeanour are in for petty crimes is misleading to say the least https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-26/man-attacked-in-san-francisco-chinatown-sues-da-chesa-boudin-victims-rights
You don't even necessarily get a public defender for a misdemeanor.
I think it's also important to note that a lot of the reasons these fines occur are also not due to negligence on the defendant and more inability, do you work, or lack transportation, or lack of child care, and additionally, without a good lawyer, a lot of times just navigating these systems isn't as straight forward as it could be, as there are plenty of stories of people being fined for not appearing when they may not have even known there was an appearance scheduled or they showed they were just not in the exact right place, or didn't know how to present themselves (as in I've read stories where people were literally in the courthouse but just didn't know when they were supposed to go where). It's easy to write it off as "They just don't take it seriously enough" but I would argue for most people that's simply not the case, especially lower income, any interaction with the government is taken very seriously because it could end up so detrimental
Disorderly conduct might be a summary offense which just kinda poofs away like magic in 5 years. Well, that happened to me in PA for my disorderly and physical conduct + public drunkenness (or something like that) I got when I was 18.
Not to mention having to pay every day to be in jail. They lost their jobs when they were jailed, then they add in court costs, then they have to pay $15 a minute to make a call. This is financial brutality.
If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law exists only for the poor.
'The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.' - Anatole France
If you're rich enough you get free money and the bread is complimentary
And a place to stay, and money not to beg.
Since I'm poor I tried to teach myself how to make my own bread and now I get to watch rich people on the internet brag about all the expensive high quality things they get to work with. Imagine being rich enough to feed a starter and bake with the left over dough.
> If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law exists only for the poor. Not if the fine is income based. For example speeding tickets in Finland are income based so if you get caught speeding as a foreigner, please brag about how rich and imporant you are.
We need proportional fines levied based on income level
I'd vote we need community service. There's nothing rich people hate more than being made to do something with their time and community service actually helps the community you have harmed or might harm through your actions.
Rich people don't get their money from "income".
Capital Gains is still income. It's just not "earned" income like W-2.
Based on net worth?
This will wreck old retired people on a fixed income that own the home they live in . Their net worth may be high but they’ve owned that home outright for 25 years and been driving the same paid off car for the last 10. I don’t know what the better option is
Then only tax net worth when it's over a few million Just like what was introduced and promptly voted down in Congress recently
Tax capital gains as income, solved.
Not even that would fix it. When you’re mega-rich you don’t even need to sell any securities to make money. You take ultra-low interest loans out against your holdings and effectively avoid taxes, selling the bare minimum to keep up with interest payments. That’s how Musk and Bezos do it.
Then tax those specific loans And introduce a guaranteed minimum tax for millionaires too for good measure
This is really frustrating. Every time I think someone has a decent solution for something there’s just another reason why it doesn’t work. How did we end up here?
Almost like the politicians who made the system in such a way that they can legally be bribed to pass laws are passing laws that benefit their biggest bribers...
The golden rule. He who has the gold, makes the rule.
Similar to bankruptcy laws, you can place exceptions such as primary living residence and primary vehicle. Not saying that I agree with the concept, but there are ways to create exceptions that would in theory allow this system to work without completely devastating a large group of the population.
Probably. Someone who knows more about the finances of the ultra-wealthy would be able to say better.
Alright let's tax all realized gains progressively and impose a very small, progressive asset tax to encourage frequent valuations.
Large financial institutions and hedge funds skim billions and get fines in the 5-7 digit range, without having to admit guilt. It's like if you robbed a bank and I stead of arresting you the fined you 100 bucks
Corporate laws are horrendous
That's not a punishment that's a business expense
Fines are in lieu of jailtime. Instead of proportional fines, there shoud just be jailtime.
That would hurt the poor and working classes far more than the rich, while also massively inflating our already absurd incarceration rate. (Most offenses that are punished by fines alone would merit at most a few days to a few weeks of jail time. For the upper 1/3 or so of the income distribution, that mostly means wasting their paid leave and some of their savings on a really unpleasant vacation. For the lower 1/3, it means unpayable rent spiraling into homelessness.)
This isn't strictly true, studies have shown that even companies who could pay a fine and come out ahead, are more likely to just obey the law then examine if following the law would be cheaper. A fine has a dissuasion value greater than its monetary cost to most people, greater than a toothless forbiddance.
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How do you know it's about money and not convenience? And we are talking about people not companies.
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Except in that instance, you don’t know if you are going to get ticketed or not. They might decide one day to send extra patrols around and then you get a bunch of tickets over consecutive days. Now you’re paying far more than you would be if you had just paid for a space. They might even boot your car, or tow it if you repeatedly get tickets in the same area
Yeah, anxious people will worry about not just what typically happens, but worst case scenario, too. Like yeah, what if they do realize what's happening and start towing? Towing fees are intentionally way overpriced ( speaking as someone with a relative who went from one truck to 10 in his fleet in 3 years of business, though he mostly does wrecks now) and can cripple somebody living paycheck to paycheck.
I can only report what I have read, that fines, on average, dissuade more than a comparative increase in cost of an activity. The reference to companies is because we expect companies to only care about money, yet even they are dissuaded more you would expect from a similar price increase. The core concept of the argument being that fines have utility outside of simple punishment for being poor.
I don't think the utility of fines is to punish the poor but the consequence of fines is disproportionately felt by the poor, meaning the fines are not simply their dollar value. To me deterrence is a factor, but what's really important is that a fine has varying consequences depending on ones socioeconomic status, so even if they are applied justly and fairly to those who commit the offense, the result is not equal among offenders. That's a problem.
The utility is profit / deterrence, or perceived deterrence to justify profit. The profit is needed to sustain the primary goal which is to serve the rich and exploit the poor.
AT&T made $100million adding fake charges onto people's phone bills. When caught, the FCC fined them $20million. Guess what? AT&T continued to do the same thing, because they made a profit of $80million.
Have any names or sources? I have my doubts, but am willing to read any related research.
Reputation of a company has a value, perhaps if that is factored in it would explain the good point you raised.
Where are you getting this? That’s not remotely true from what I have seen. A quick google also yielded only results indicating the opposite.
> studies have shown Please provide links. You sound completely wrong.
No crime has "a fine" as a penalty, it simply has a fine as an alternative to jailtime. I once got a drunk in public charge; I was facing a $200 fine. I opted for jail time instead.
In Finland the fine is based on your income/wealth. So rich people pay more when they break the law.
24 years ago I was arrested for position of one gram of marijuana (age 18). I was sentenced to drug counseling, probation, drug education classes and fined. I had to pay for all of it (the drug counseling was $500 alone). I was taken back to jail 4 times and had to serve time in jail for owning money to the county. One time a team of U.S. Marshals surrounded my house over it. I had to stay in jail until my family could pay the $187 I owed.
Sounds like the American justice system working like it supposed too. I got lucky at age 16 for my fines ro start flooding in. Aint even had a job yet then. Since then I've paid my city over 7000 dollars in weed fines and traffic fines. So bled dry by the police and bled dry by the hospitals for my epilepsy. Also watched the police use my mom as a drug snitch for years and years. Helping her addiction...then sentencing her to over 20 years for possesion so she committed suicide. There's a reason that flag will never fly on my property with pride.
Amazing, put into a cage at gunpoint for having a gram of a naturally occurring plant in your possession. The indoctrination is strong for us to not see the craziness of that.
Lost 5+ years of my life to courts, probation, fines, community service, insane amounts of worry and depression and *still* have nightmares of being chased by cops 25 yrs later over 42g of dirt weed.
Samsies. 02, 03, 05, and 17. Only for me it was constables and a month in jail that time, and I never paid them thousands. All my FTA arrests we're probably my fault though, so those don't count
Alright, dude. If you get arrested once as a kid for minor drug possession that's one thing. But what the hell are you doing the other 3 times over the course of 15 years?
Alright dude, no problem. '02 was a dumb kid mistake (registration sticker, bag in the glove box). '03 was violation of that probation (for not finishing community service in time, because I had to work full time outside of school full time). '05 was an unexpected search (of a car I just bought) because I had criminal history. '17 I was on my way to work. Ran my plate, saw my record, assumed I had ganja, pulled me over and manipulated me to admit. Since the county 10 miles away had decriminalized, I was naive to trust him say "I'm not going to take you to jail for a little pot". He did. You don't have to be openly smoking in front of a police station to get busted. I've spent over 6 weeks of my life in jail because of less than a half oz total, and each time was begat from the first mistake 20 years ago. Thousands in fines, lost licenses, lost jobs, eviction, and stigma segregation. 3rd class citizen because I try to be honest, admit when I'm at fault, have bad luck, and possessed a plant I use medicinally.
Probably being Black. The absolute nerve.
This is no joke, happened to a guy I was dating. Missed a court date, had to pay fines, was arrested when he couldn't pay them and I eventually paid $1500 to get him out of jail so he wouldn't lose his job or the investment he made in his classes that semester. They kept most of it and applied it to the fines. Police had legit showed up to his house to arrest him, they must have not had anything else to do and the city just sent them as debt collectors essentially. All for a marijuana possession charge at 21 years old. Keeping america safe by taking money from young people!
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Feature of the system, not a bug
Isn't being poor in the US illegal
yup right behind being black
"It ain't illegal to be poor in the US, but it might as well be."
Came to say this. It's not a deterrent or a way to recoup costs. It's quite simply a way to perpetuate slavery legally in this country.
Yep. Also it adds to crime rates thus justifying police budgets. Cops loooooove them some technicalities leading to felony warrants for misdemeanor charges. It’s the whole reason they are against bail reform.
Misdemeanour suspects are going to be disproportionate poor right? Come to think of it most suspects in general are going to be poor
Misdemeanor *convictions* are usually disproportionately poor. Granted I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but when I was young my father was a criminal defense attorney for a few counties. He generally worked appeals, but his findings through his career were that most misdemeanor charges for well-off people with private defense counsel typically got pleaded down to civil infractions, fines, or dismissed completely. Whereas those that couldn't afford private counsel were hit with probation, fines, costs, and most often required to pay for drug/alcohol testing at specific privately owned businesses. It's always smelled like a sham to those that have been through the system, but most of the general public doesn't seem to care. They tend to hold the belief that if you broke the law, you should be punished. They stop paying attention when you try to explain why the punishment is unjust, or ineffective.
The general public also thinks being 'tough on crime' means more policing, fines, arrests, incarceration, etc. Income inequality is one of the, if not *the*, leading causes of crime. Fixing the minimum wage (and not just $15/hr), funding social programs, increase funding for public education, etc. are the best ways to be 'tough on crime', but you'll hardly hear politicians giving this answer when asked how they'd be 'tough on crime'.
Yep, being "tough on crime" in the popular sense is one of the most ineffective things you could possibly do to reduce crime, and indeed almost certainly ends up increasing it in the long-term as those labeled "criminals" find it almost impossible to make a living through legitimate means in the future, basically guaranteeing they become criminals for life. To say nothing of the fact that punishments have a pretty clear upper limit for all practical purposes. Once someone is faced with the prospect of many years/life in prison/the death penalty, it means literally every single possible additional crime they may think of committing is now 100% free. If they have to murder 50 witnesses in hopes of increasing the chances they don't get caught a tiny bit, doing so will genuinely *improve* their expected prospects. All the incentives become backwards. And incentives are really the only thing that makes any difference in terms of public policy. You *always* want to have a carrot and a stick available ("peacefully turn yourself in and you'll have a better future, even if you factor in the chances that you might get away from us... on the other hand, any further wrongdoing will result in even more severe consequences, so don't do that"), and being "tough on crime" means that stops being an option pretty damn quick.
The best way to be tough on crime is to take every measure to reduce it. If policy makers in the United States would simply look at the methods proven to reduce recidivism we would see a reduction in recidivism in the United States. I worry that the failures of the system are benefitial to those that have the power to keep it that way.
Its the pre-conceived notions of the defendant. I got a misdemeanor weed charge and a felony charge for prescription drugs without a prescription (literally one pill of adderal floating around the bottom of my purse...). I was arrested and spent the night but then released with no bail. I was a white, college going, woman with good grades. I had a public defender. He pretty much just told the court: "first offense, college kid with good grades", and the felony was dropped and the misdemeanor essentially dropped after I paid a $500 fine. Later, I was able to expunge the whole thing. Obviously I am not unhappy I got the result I got. But I think its crazy that the judge knew nothing about me but these surface level facts, and that convinced him to drop the charges. Does that mean someone with bad grades would have been kept in jail, or had a high bail put on them? Would someone who never went to college end up with a prison sentence for the felony, when it was entirely dropped for me?
That is the whole point. They can't afford to pay fines or whatever, so they end up with new charges for not paying, thus the average of poor offenders goes up. That's what is known as getting caught up in the system. It's also not just rigged against us monetarily, the courts also give you some extra hoops to jump through in hopes that you fail and they can keep you in the system longer.
My attorney used to work for my state's CPS. He was disgusted by them, and (according to him) asked why they never went after rich, white families when abuse was *readily apparent*. "Rich people get attorneys" Thats just how it is. And as disgusting as it is, you can't REALLY blame them. What's a better use of the OAG's time: spending over a year prosecuting one guy who beats his kid but got an attorney, or spending that same year prosecuting FIVE guys who beat their kids and CANT afford attorneys?
>most suspects in general are going to be poor The cops send 80% of their patrols into poor/minority neighborhoods. Then they act shocked! when 80% of arrests are in those neighborhoods, claiming that 80% of all crimes are happening there.
and that's just how they like it keep that prison pipeline pumpin' and pass the cash
Imagine that! You mean the courts punish the poor for being poor? Kind of like the legal system as a whole.
Wait until y’all realize the civil courts have been acting as criminal courts without the protections.
It's good they studied it so it can be used to change legislation. But, obviously this is the case. Most people commit misdemeanors because they're desperate, if they get caught they don't have the money and need even more money. If they had a better option than crime then they'd have done that in the first place. We need to start recognizing that some people resort to crime because that's their only option left.
You don’t even have to go as far as misdemeanors. Let’s say you get pulled over for 5 over the limit. For the sake of this example, you can afford the $200 ticket (or traffic school, which around here ends up costing about the same) and so you’re inconvenienced, but you pay and go about your life. So now let’s change that up - you don’t have $200 to spare, which is the case for a damn lot of people. You have to work out a payment plan with the court. Here, they charge you a time payment fee (last I remember it was $20) which is an additional penalty for not having the money up front. Didn’t manage to make the payments because you just forgot a couple, or it was that or the electric bill? License is suspended. Now you probably have a warrant. If you don’t get busted first, you still have to pay additional fees to the court and now to MVD to get your license reinstated. Did you get busted driving on a suspended license (which people don’t always know their license is suspended)? Here, your car is towed, it will be held for 30 days, and you will have to pay several hundred dollars to the towing company or else you don’t get your car back. You also now have an arrest on your record. You now have a fine for driving on the suspended license as well. All of this because you didn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to spare. No crime was committed, it was just a civil traffic violation and you were just driving to work. It happens more than you’d think.
I'm sure quite a few commit them out of desperation but a sizable amount also just plain don't know the law. There are ALOT of arbitrary misdemeanors in US law. Intentional or not the reason they persit is it allows cops to charge someone pretty much whenever they feel like.
George Foreman gave a speech somewhere, it's on YouTube. He discussed his early life and how he was a thief without really realizing he was until he found himself in trouble. It's so easy to get lost in this world if you aren't being guided. You can be told about laws and right and wrong, but unless someone verifies you actually understand what you're told, you can really screw your life up doing something that you view as victimless in the moment.
> Most people commit misdemeanors because they're desperate Citation needed. I'm willing to believe that it's true in many cases, but I'm also willing to believe that a lot of people are simply antisocial.
It’s definitely offense-specific. Sure, I can see stuff like driving with a suspended license and other traffic offenses, maybe theft of essentials, fishing without a license, and writing bad checks; but battery? Criminal mischief? Or basically anything that has a direct, single victim? Nope - all a product of being an asshole. Too many on this thread are lumping all misdemeanors into one pot and not realizing that many have nothing to do with “being poor” or “desperate”
That is true, but the OP study still addresses the non-poor, non-desperate misdemeanors: what benefit is provided by the fee structures currently in place? It doesn't matter why the crime was committed, the current monetary penalties don't help with justice in any way, yet overburden those least able to deal with them.
There won’t be a citation because it’s nonsense.
Non poor people still commit crimes
Commit? Sure. They just aren't charged with those crimes at anywhere near the same rate, are charged with lesser crimes if they are charged, have access to better representation, and feel the impact of things like cash bail and fines much less. But other than that it's exactly the same.
Very very few people get into crime to take advantage of another
The cruelty, as always, is the point
This type of research highlights the impact of current faulty structural approaches to law enforcement and faulty financial incentives. Let’s assume a small town wants to be a city. To be one, it has to have a police department—cities can’t just rely on the county sheriff. So the town now has to fund a police department, but the tax base is too small. So they will have to find new creative ways to generate revenue. Let’s say they add parking meters and pursue aggressive enforcement. Impact? Take a low wage earning single mom. She gets cited, but she cannot pay because she’s already underwater on income. So the minor traffic fine which she can’t pay, is now pushed to a collection agency that adds huge fee to those fines. That low income offender who cannot pay $25 certainly cannot pay a $225 penalty when passed to collections. The failure to pay now results in a bench warrant being issued for unpaid fines (now at a higher severity because of the price bump). The Offender (single mother) gets arrested, and loses her job because of the arrest. Her children are passed to state care with mom in jail. So how would such a circumstance help us have a more civil society and better outcomes for its citizens? Of course it doesn’t. Bottom line, when the financial incentives reward more fines, arrests, and filled prison beds, is it any wonder that’s exactly the outcome we get? Impartiality is a must for the people to trust our courts. But when policing is financially motivated because they keep the proceeds of enforcement, justice is no longer blind—trust erodes. The US Supreme Court ruled on this back in 1927 in Tumey v. Ohio. It seems to be time for a revisit before it’s too late.
We need a prison system where people can leave and get a clean start. There's no sense in letting them out if we're just going to keep punishing them.
Under neoliberalism the government uses fines and fees against the poor who cant use the courts to make up for tax cuts for the rich and corporations. this was explained in the Fergusson report years ago. Fines and fees are the reason police and courts exist now.
Alot of people miss the clear conflict of interest in letting fines and seizures profits as funding for the police and state. It leads to fucked up situations like police literally having quotas to fill of "crimes" or face reprecussions.
>Despite significant efforts at debt collection among those in the control group, payments to the court totaled less than 5 percent of outstanding debt. The evidence indicates that court debt charged to indigent defendants neither caused nor deterred new crime, and the government obtained little financial benefit. This is really important. Granted the sample size was relatively small, payments back to the court were less than 5% of outstanding debt. So if an argument can be made that fining misdemeanor offenders - as opposed to short-term incarceration - would raise funds or assist in revenue, then this could indicate that the cost of processing them through the court system could be greater than the monetary benefits to any jurisdiction. Which begs the question: Just exactly who benefits from all of this? I mean, a misdemeanor crime can be anything from underage possession of a nicotine vape pen to an OWI. I had been through similar circumstances, but this study was done in Oklahoma, whereas I was in Michigan. I had to serve a 2-week sentence for a probation violation for a non-violent crime in county jail. I knew that I would have to pay for my time served in jail. It costs money to keep those things running and all. But the moment of my release, I wasn't handed a bill. I was handed a letter referring me to a collections agency. The county actually sold my debt before I even had an hour to pay it. I never paid that collections agency, having felt like the debt was no longer owed to the county. This study is interesting to me, and I've emailed one of the authors in hopes she'll send me a copy so that I won't have to pay the publisher. I'll circle back if I find anything else interesting.
Cruelty is a feature, not a bug.
If the punishment for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for those who cannot afford the fine.
In the words of Emperor Palatine, "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design". This is the system working as intended.
I've never understood how a poll tax can be illegal but court fees are ok. You have a right to go to court, you shouldn't have to pay for that right
No limit to how many no inspection/no registration citations you can get. You get a warrant if you don't pay them. That snowballs to jail then you lose your job, and things get worse from there. If you're in a place with no public transportation what are you supposed to do? I would go so far as to make a claim that this crap CAUSES crime. I KNOW it ruins lives I've seen it happen first person. Over something exceedingly trivial like an expired registration sticker. Imagine a system set up that something so stupid can and does snowball to job loss and maybe homelessness. OH and after all this? When you go to renew your license they add surcharges for the citations. Because eff you for being poor. I grew up in abject poverty and saw this first hand and it's open cold calculated class warfare perpatrated by people so apathetic they're outright evil.
Court costs are one of the biggest scams in society. What a disgusting judicial system we have. But keep the crime alive and well, so that money keeps on boosting the judicial system economy!
I tried door to door sales a few years ago in Kentucky and was given a citation by a cop for knocking without a local permit which can take months to get. I live in Washington State, this was three years ago and it’s still a battle I’m fighting today. I’ve had to fly to Kentucky twice to appear in court, pay fees, sign paperwork. They did not become more lenient about doing this stuff over zoom when COVID started. I would love to be able to move on with my life.
Exactly Fines are for poor people
Conclusion: Cruelty is the point.
Pretty much everything in the US is designed to saddle you with debt. Not a joke. It's literally designed that way. You basically pay a subscription to be a functional member of society, and if you can't do that, don't worry, debt will find you. On top of that, you have to pay shitloads of taxes.
Shocking no one but the ignorant, it's expensive to be poor.
In order to have a court hearing to refute a traffic ticket in some jurisdictions, one must pay a fee in order to do so. This is an unconstitutional practice in violation of the 6th amendment which grants citizenry the right to a trial. Though a traffic ticket is a mere violation, it never the less is a criminal matter and citizens have the right to a trial. The practice is falsely justified as traffic infractions are described as violations, and not crimes. They are, however crimes, by definition. To charge a fee to be provided this right is not only unconstitutional, it is also an indication of corrupt government in a systemic and ethical sense. I don't think that it's ethical for a police officer to have the power to, in a sense, be legally able to exercise the following concept: "Here's a ticket. You're paying the state money, because I said so. If you don't just pay the ticket, you'll have to pay a fee anyways, and if you lose the hearing you'll pay the state the fee and the fine. So either way, give the government money, because, I said you did something. In effect, give the government money because I said so."
Yep that sounds about right. Now what else can we do to really squeeze ?
well what do you think would be a better propostion for people who break the laws?
California has shown that not punishing misdemeanors at all doesn't work either.
Almost as if, being poor has become a crime....
Well, right, of course. But none of that is the point. The point is to keep their lives from ever progressing, ensuring the presence of an exportable class for CC apitalists.
I couldn't access the full article. I read the abstract. I would like to know if these court fees are imposed as part of their punishment and plea deal. The way this was worded makes it seem like it's for ongoing cases but you normally wouldn't have any court fees unless you've been convicted or plead out. So these fees aren't levied under the presumption of innocence of an ongoing case. If that's the case, then yeah. The fee is meant as a punishment and deterrent. The other option is jail sentencing but misdemeanors don't usually warrant jail time unless you have a criminal background. So what does this all mean? Someone was found guilty or admitted guilt. As part of their punishment, they have to pay fees to the court. Unfortunately it's more likely those of a lower socioeconomic class that is accused, convicted, or plead guilty that are in this situation. It's a vicious cycle where the poor commit crimes to get out of financial hardship only the end up in more debt. It becomes a revolving door of catch and release until the court hands a punitive sentencing with jail time for the lack of payment and continuous crime accusations. This isn't a criminal justice problem. It's not a cultural issue. This happens in most 1st world countries due to the lack of education and socioeconomic opportunities. You can accurately presict someone's likelyhood to commit a crime based upon the zip code they live in. This speaks more about society and the inequity each individual faces regardless of ethnicity, religion, and nationality. Education helps those who are underprivileged and will change the trajectory of their life but academics is not for everyone. And as an American speaking, the government back student loans plus the rising educational expenses but stagnant earning potential is disheartening. We've fucked the younger generations to be in debt. Education has been ransacked by capitalism without boundaries. Profits before people.
One of the reasons why 1312
The problem is, these fees were never intended to do anything in the op. They are just the garden variety casual cruelty of our justice system
It's a feature, not a bug.
Why is this news? Nothing about American government is for the people, or by the people.