Call it what it is, War on the Poor! Republicans won't be satisfied until every man, woman and child in this country who lives at or bellow the poverty line are locked up. It is hard to mount an insurrection from behind bars. The rich who feed at the Republican trough feel safer when the jails are full.
Poverty is not a crime. The crime is that this Rich country has 40 million people who live in poverty. That is our national shame.
6
All the fees that people are required to pay to submit applications, pay for juries, court fees, etc.are just another way to keep people who are poor from ever getting out from under.
The money saved by not sending someone to jail or prison should easily cover these sorts of court costs.
It looks great on a politician's resume to say that they have shifted the burden of our justice system to the people who are using it, but it's one more way to punish someone without bothering to actually convict them.
Lawyermom, it is equal treatment. Prison sentences are equal because generally speaking, everyone has a somewhat equal life expectancy, so an 8 year sentence is about 10% of your life. Fines are not equal since $1000 a nice dinner to one person and a month's income to another. Charging 10% of your annual income is equal treatment.
Maybe you are really arguing that fees for service should be the same, which I agree with, except their shouldn't be a fee for using the justice system.
Here's a thought exercise: If we got rid of all prison sentences and only did fines, how what we set up a just system that would keep the rich from breaking the law?
1
One of the most important reasons we have prisons is to keep dangerous people away from the rest of us. A murderer serves for a long time, partly as punishment, but also so that he doesn't have the opportunity to kill you or me. The more violent the crime, the longer the sentence -which protects the rest of us for as long as possible.
3
This fine article understates the depth of the problem. It is not just fines, or even incarceration at issue, Wealth inequality severely biases the justice system. Remember OJ's 'Dream Team' of lawyers, or how the Justice Dept. declined to even perp-walk and charge the TBTF executives because the chance of conviction against $$$ defense is poor? "We have the best justice system money can buy?"
Poor people have the problems cited here, plus:
Prosecuting attorneys get good salaries and benefits. Public defenders are usually paid less and have higher case loads. Advantage: the wealthy!
Prosecutors have access to CSI resources unavailable to the poor, but affordable to the rich. Advantage: the wealthy!
Prosecutors can coach not only their witnesses, but police and investigators. Defense has no such access, but can hire experts if affordable. Advantage: the wealthy!
Remember that attorneys for Both sides are considered "Officers of the Court'. They are bound by the same code of legal ethics, but not by similar financial and investigative resources. What we have is not Equal Justice, but a Free Market legal system.
"Money doesn't talk, it screams." - Bob Dylan
6
Most people who are convicted never even should have been arrested. Too many things are considered crimes. Drug use and sales don't need to be crimes. White people are allowed to do these things. Crimes should be actions which cause real harm. And even the, whatever happened to community service? Except for mothers with young children, most people can do that. And mothers should get credit for good mothering.
Most so called drug treatment programs are fake and/or expensive. Lets make REAL (medical) drug treatment available, with medication.
Our system doesn't do anything to reduce crime. But lots of people make money from it.
1
Please cite examples of laws that specify that white people can legally use and sell drugs, but Blacks can't. Also, explain why it's a good, safe idea for violent criminals to work in community service jobs which give them access to the public and/or small children and seniors citizens or disabled people.
2
Great plan, but when you run a red light and kill a pedestrian, the damage done is not on a sliding scale. Unless, of course, you take the point of view that the higher the net worth or expected lifetime income of the person killed, the harsher the punishment should be. Somehow I expect Alexes Harris would not find this version of "justice" very palatable.
2
I get one or two parking tickets a month. In lower Manhattan, they are 65 per ticket. I am affluent enough to owna car, but the downside is tickets. I also get speeding tickets. A speeding ticket will cost me either maybe 300 dollars and points or 350 dollars to hire a lawyer to plead me down to a parking infraction (in lieu of a moving violation). Of course, I shouldn't speed, because it's against the law. But I spend about 800 a year on speeding tickets and about 350 a year on parking tickets. I've been towed twice, and that's 150 dollars or more.
Parking fines are smaller in Manhattan above 125th St and other boroughs. That's congestion pricing at work in the form of parking tickets. If one doesn't pay one's ticket on time, there's a penalty fee. If one doesn't fund one's EZ Pass or pay one's toll fees, there's a HUGE penalty fee.
My point is that drivers in Manhattan tend to pay out a lot in fines and fees. I love my car. So, it's worth it. But it is one way in which more affluent residents get worked over by the system. I have to move my car twice a week for street cleaning. They don't really clean, and they don't need to do it twice a week.
Whomever dreamed up the idea of incarcerating people for failure to pay a fine should be incarcerated for wasting tax dollars and being mean spirited.
2
Some people say that Jim Crow is dead. Some people should shut their mouth.
He is alive and well
In both the North and in the South.
4
Jim Crow was a product of the democrats. If you feel Jim Crow still exists, it is in big cities which are run by democrats. Jim Crow is wrong, and should never have come about - but make sure you aren't blaming the wrong party for its existence.
It seems as though many of these commenters have not read the article. People are sometimes fined REGARDLESS of whether they are guilty or not. Defending oneself shouldn't be cost prohibitive.
2
Hear, hear. A complete separation of Capitalism and Confinement is our next major epiphany after Church and State. We already, supposedly, outlaw "debtor's prisons" - we recognize the injustice inherent in such a concept - yet in practice that is essentially what our justice system has long been.
1
The problem is the criminal justice system is significantly funded by fines. That leads to an inherent conflict of interest. There are two ways to correct the problem. Properly fund the criminal justice system by raising taxes; an almost impossible task. Reduce the number of violations by statute or enforcement.
Absolutely. Fines are actually a significant source of revenue for the State, alongside taxes and other fees. This is particularly true with regard to traffic enforcement, where I've noticed, in recent years, that every new law tends to come with an obligation to purchase something, and a fine if you don't. Either way, you pay. One wonders whether laws are based more on profitability or the public interest.
Let's stop feeling bad for the criminals. In fact, the fines should be higher, so that they should feel the pain of their crimes.
7
Maybe the low-income people could, you know, stop committing criminal acts? Then they'd be far less likely to run afoul of the justice system.
8
In Ferguson, the low-income and minority populations were ticketed and fined high amounts for tiny infractions that were not enforced at all in "better" neighborhoods. Should a low-income person lose their job or housing because they made a rolling stop at a stop sign, or didn't clean the leaves from their yard? Those are often the kinds of "crimes" we're talking about. The town was siphoning millions of dollars into its treasury, by virtually shaking down the poorest and least powerful of their citizens. How does making low-income people homeless or jobless, or taking away their food or utilities, or jailing them, over incredibly minor "offenses" improve our society? Why turn basically law-abiding, productive members of society into criminals and indigents because they can't pay a fine?
1
As a former prosecutor, I couldn't agree more with the writer's points. There is another injustice visited upon poor clients, the use of exorbitant and unnecessary bail for non-violent crimes. Money bail should never be required in cases where the defendant has no record of non-appearance, there is little likelihood of flight, and no danger to the community or witnesses. It only serves to enrich professional bailbondsmen. And while I'm on it, there is the problem of predatory contractors who provide things like personal hygiene products to jail inmates at ten times the price they are sold at Walmart. Telephone access is through contractors who charge ungodly rates to inmates and split their loot with the jails. Unfortunately, the courts have been stacked with people who share the attitude of Tom Cotton, so that avenue toward justice has been effectively closed off..
1
Arresting and assessing fines against the poor is like shooting fish in a barrel.
No "important person's" feathers get ruffled, we can pretend our courts don't need taxes to be sustained, and the results of keeping people locked in cycles of poverty can be easily passed off by the rich as those other peoples' due for their so-called lack of morality.
Until we understand how this not only fails to elevate, but in fact drags down, our society, it's not about to change. Particularly in the face of one of an incompetent blowhard with a sycophant following spewing his vitriol in the direction of the poor from his golden chair.
2
These fines are for relatively minor infractions, not violent crime yet high fines to the poor is just going to ensure they end up in jail anyway while being a minor inconvenience for others. Once again those who are least fortunate are disproportionately impacted.
1
Justice is not a commodity which is worth in $$. All progressive changes in the Justice System are welcome and are valuable. But we have to see the elephant in the room - racism. Unless , that is removed and I am not talking about affirmative action, every effort will be futile and fall short of success.
2
Reading some of the comments, there seem to be a presumption that if everyone strive and became a millionaire all problems would be solved.
The greed that crates such individual wealth is not in any way good for the economy. Think about it for a moment, (never mind that the money supply will not allow for) everyone being a millionaire, but the economy would collapse in a matter of days. The only way you have number of millionaires is to have an extreme level of poverty as well. That is the very reason for the high level of poverty in the US, and a number of other countries as well.
Republican campaign donors have succeeded in institutionalizing their aversion to taxes well beyond loyal conservative Believers. And in the nation that proudly leads the world in incarceration, the criminal justice system has become the one-size-fits-all answer to all social problems.
It is thus inevitable that our elected officials (who want to remain in office) would turn to the criminal justice system as a way to raise needed revenue without (visible) taxes. For what legislator would dare argue against punishing law-breakers with fines, fees, or assessments?
Ferguson was just the most extreme publicized example of this approach. But it goes on everywhere, and naturally punishes lower-income people disproportionately because of their inability to pay.
In Los Angeles, a jaywalking ticket costs $200. About $150 of that is "assessments" and "fees" the state and local governments have tacked on to the base fine. Until a few days ago, the LAPD aggressively exploited an antiquated law to collect $200 from numerous unsuspecting pedestrians who believed new "countdown" traffic lights meant they could cross as long as the decrementing red number had not reached zero. The practice created enough outrage for the Legislature to fix the law, effective Monday. The LAPD will surely find other ways to make up for the lost revenue.
As long as we insist on public services but refuse to pay taxes for them, governments will turn to the criminal justice system for the funding.
2
Working with homeless people, I have seen over and over someone arrested for a minor violation, very often caused by being homeless. They cannot make bail and spend the next three weeks in jail. Then a public defender offers them a deal of "time served." This is an "Alice in Wonderland" legal system where you serve your sentence first and then get a trial.
OK, let me see, the NY Times is thrilled with the idea of me being fined for doing nothing wrong except for refusing to buy healthcare but perfectly fine with criminals, whom claim to be indignant, having to not only face no incarceration, but also no fine.
Really? Maybe they could do an interpretive drawing showing their remorse (I suppose the state should buy them the materials to do this painting).
9
To the many commenters who say that this wouldn't be a problem if people simply wouldn't commit crimes in the first place:
The trouble in Ferguson awakened many of us to the fact that a lot of the people who get swallowed up in small-town legal problems are decent, hard-working citizens.
Imagine you're driving between 2 different jobs, trying hard to make ends meet and support your family, and you get a ticket for a broken tail light. The next thing you know, you're in jail because you can't afford to pay the fine, and then you lose your both of jobs because you're in jail, and then you can't pay the rent, and then....
That's what life is like in America for a lot of ordinary people. You might think that our legal system only goes after the dregs of society, but that's not the reality.
3
Ken,
I've never had a broken tail light. I get your point, but your slippery slope seems a bit melodramatic. You make it sound as if a person slips quickly from a broken tail light to a life of grand theft auto and life imprisonment. Just make sure you don't have a broken tail light. I've been behind cars on the highway with broken tail lights. It's very unsafe. It's a genuine hazard. I do think the police should give out a warning first time. Maybe they do. If you own a car, it's your responsibility to keep it in working order. If you can't afford to have a family, don't have a family.
So many of these hypothetical scenarios about income and issues seem to return to one point: If you can't afford to have kids, don't have kids. The system may KEEP people poor, but kids MAKE people poor. Nothing is more expensive than children.
2
OK. We should not be putting people in prison as a punishment for minor offenses. We should not be fining them as punishment for minor offenses. It seems to me that according to these idealists, all we can do is to wag our finger at them and say "Shame, Shame" when they choose to flaunt the laws passed by the representatives of the people.
If one cannot afford a $250 fine, perhaps that should be a consideration when one contemplates breaking the law. Just a thought.
6
Several EU countries have the concept of "day fines", where the fine is based on the number of hour, days, or months of income that would be an appropriate fine. While it does not consider assets, it is certainly more fair than our current system in the face of rampant income inequality. My memory is that courts have ruled against this in the US, but maybe times are changing.
1
How about levy fines and fees provisionally, with the cost waived if the accused stays "clean" for a period of time? Makes sense to me. But then that would mean that the government would have to fine additional sources of revenue or reduce costs proportionally. I vote for the latter.
1
The issue here isn’t the fine or the ease of paying it off: it’s the injustice of some of these fines in the first place. A $400 application fee for invoking your constitutional right to an attorney is unjust no matter how easily you can get your hands on $400. However, a $400 fine imposed by the court following due process is a different matter entirely. The author should recognize the importance of these distinctions.
6
This would be a non issue if we didn't have such a huge problem with economic inequality. This is just one example of how the rot of massive inequality destroys countries. It has destroyed the political system, the justice system, the financial system, family systems, and it will destroy democracy entirely if it hasn't already done so.
Economists don't see their actions as a problem, because they're narrow minded and far too independent (as encouraged by our academic systems) to be helpful anymore.
1
There are many ideas of merit in this piece. However, each "offense" must be assessed on it's own. I'm against categories of punishments for certain crimes, especially misdemeanors. Sometimes if a minor or a very young adult is involved in a first offense for possession of marijuana, it might be better to suspend or drop the charges. Otherwise community service is a positive alternative.
Of course, if weapons and violence are involved that's a whole other class of crime. Still the sentence should be more than ware-housing people in favor of true rehabilitation. We have a long way to go.
2
Maybe low income criminals should stop engaging in criminal behavior if they can't afford the consequences. Optionally, they could use some of the income from the roughly 100 federal programs taxpayers are paying roughly $1 trillion for, re antipoverty programs, to help pay the fines. And that's just federal programs -- then you have all the state and local antipoverty programs.
It's never enough for you people. We're $20 trillion in federal debt. We aren't taking care of core needs like infrastructure and quality medical care. (Is it worth to pay a traffic ticket or for a drug offense, or not have one's cancer or heart condition treated optimally? Remember, liberals are now bleating about how the ACA, which they voted in, is failing.
Priorities. Focus. You can't have everything, especially when you want something for nothing. What would the US be like if people realized that no personal responsibility for actions is required. I believe we're well on the road to seeing that as programs like a 50+ year epic failure of the liberal led "war on poverty" continue to fail, but something for nothing is seen as more and more of a "right".
This kid of thinking hurts everyone.
11
Our court system and legal system is NOT a Justice system. There is no care or regard for justice when there are mandatory minimums and fixed fines. Fines and penalties that are percentages of income or wealth would be a huge step toward justice.
Another step would be to require all juries to be instructed on Jury Nullification. Juries were formed originally not to just decide what the truth is but also to decide if the law in this particular instance is just. Juries are made up of our peers to determine if the law itself is in the community's best interest at this time. Let's empower the public by empowering our juries.
People should not be paying for being accused of breaking the law. That's an incentive to arrest people based on nothing more than a suspicion rather than evidence of wrongdoing. Second, it's making the saying that a person gets the best justice money can buy uncomfortably close to reality. If we can't afford the fine or a lawyer to defend us (and one is appointed but has too many cases to pay attention to ours) we have lost before we have a chance to defend ourselves.
I'd rather see justice being constructive: have the offender who has destroyed property fix the damages or pay to fix the damages. Have the thief work off the cost of what he/she stole and return the goods. Let them do community service like picking up the trash on the roads or, if they are qualified, working at the local community center, or the local food pantry. In many ways our current system of justice is not preventing minor crimes, not solving the problems that lead to crimes, and leaving too many people with records that will interfere with their attempts to do better in life. There's nothing like having to work alongside someone you stole from and watching how hard it can be to make an honest dollar and learning how to stock shelves or count the day's receipts.
Then again, perhaps what this country really ought to be doing instead of making money off of people in the criminal justice system is providing better jobs so that people don't need to resort to crime to survive.
1
If people "need to resort to crime to survive", why is it that senior citizens, who make up the poorest segment of the population, don't do crimes?
So now paying a token fine for a drug conviction is injustice? Way to keep moving the goalposts, editors. Why don't you skip to the end and just tell us what punishment you think is fair? My guess is that, as long as black people commit disproportionately more crimes, your white guilt will see any consequence as unjust because of, you know, racism.
7
Will Workman: Bingo! Anyone who has read other NYT editorials on criminal justice knows you are correct.
1
Our "Crime and Punishment" culture and the so called Law and Order politicians are responsible for pushing the less fortunate in a catch 22 situation. Even after they have paid for their crimes the consequences continue.
Our policing and criminal codes go back to our so called Maverick days - at times we still live in 18th century America.
In order to be more just we need to be more humane instead of just being human. Some of the human instinct are essentially propelled by our Judaea Christian beliefs of an eye for and eye concept. We have ignored the next part of that belief system which is "To forgive is Divine".
Our Judicial system (Municipal courts) are being used by townships to balance their budgets to provide various services to the citizens of the town. Is this the correct incentive to impose extra surcharges on individuals who cannot afford to even pay the actual fine?
The decriminalization in many States of past Marijuana convictions may help some but our current AG still is living in the 18th century and believes that people should be incarcerated instead of being rehabilitated.
Society bears certain responsibility re the commission of many crimes, if a person is hungry and steals food, should he be punished the same way as one who commits a bank fraud? It is strange though that the white collar criminal/law breaker with good attorney would get off with a slap on the wrist whereas the hungry food thief may be sent to the prison for months.
1
Obviously there is no one single solution to the over burdened courts and over crowded prisons in the US. Most people agree that the current system of incarceration is not a solution but in fact a disaster that churns up the most disenfranchised people in our society and spits them back out. This should be a priority to our communities and elected officials to study the problems and implement constructive changes. It's no secret that wealthy folks rarely do time because of their ability to pay their way clear. A more equitable fine structure is a good start for non violent crimes.
First, we should just get rid of making low level pot offenses "crimes". Legalize marijuana.
That aside, though, isn't the entire point of "punishment" that it is supposed to be unpleasant? I have sympathy for people who are arrested and prosecuted for things that should not be crimes (like marijuana). But for the disturbers of the peace, the public drunks, the drunk and reckless drivers who could KILL someone, the thieves, the defacers of other's property, the assaulters, etc etc etc?
Sorry, no sympathy. They make society less safe and less pleasant. However they get punished, it should be unpleasant to life disrupting for them, as they are unpleasant and life disrupting to the rest of us.
A lot of "small" crimes cause financial burdens and serious life disruptions for the victims as they clean up the effects of the crime. I've have both my car and home broken into and had a hoodlum deface my property. I've had disruptive teenagers wake me and my kids up at all times of the night. Do you think that was free for ME to deal with? Do you think I might have had to take some time off work to clean up the mess? Do you think having to pay for an alarm system every month as a preventative measure is free?
But the perpetrators should get what, some social sympathy and job training because we don't want to "disrupt" their lives? Oh, heck no.
6
good idea, punish people for having jobs.
Is it just me or are these NYT editorials becoming increasingly far left? I work in healthcare and deal with many patients who have substance abuse issues. Most of them have the latest iPhone, brand new shoes, and are wearing the latest fashions. Sorry but if you can afford drugs and luxury items then you can pay a fine. And enough with this ultra liberal nonsense! Keep printing editorials like this and pushing more far left agendas and Republicans are going to keep winning...
10
Criminal Justice ? Keyword: Criminal If there is a crime committed there should be no fine, and no incarceration ? Gee there's an idea. So why pay parking tickets, how about the camera tickets ? Maybe we should base criminal sentencing based on income level ? The most idiotic column ever written.
4
Anyone who can buy a bag of weed, and all the bags they bought before they got caught, can afford to pay a fine when they get caught with one. Lets get real NYT.
8
Remind me why you progressives love the government so much?
2
Many have their income fingers in the pie of the court system. All those experts, classes, therapies, etc. Nice white collar men and women sucking the financial blood from their clients.
Nice gig, court ordered income assurance.
why not community service? cleaning up the street around schools? or cutting the grass on freeway ramps? for those who can't do physical work, how about volunteering at a hospital directing visitors?
if the punishment benefits the aggrieved community, we all get the point.
7
How about giving the violator a choice of jail or community service? It sounds strange, but giving people choices helps them build back their self esteem, but also there are some people what would choose jail over community service for a variety of reasons, and this eliminates the forced labor objection.
1
I like this idea, but it does raise the specter of forced labor. We should give it a try even so.
So, now a predator's "self esteem" matters more than their victim's life?
2
You know, really, it gets to the point where one begins to wonder. There's a sure way to avoid the penalties of criminal justice - don't commit crimes. You can determine to be law abiding. If drugs are illegal, don't use them! If you are drunk, don't get in a car. Need job training? We have a free K-12 public education system and in most places you can use it to your advantage to prepare for a skilled trade or for college. The educational systems nationwide are bending over backwards not to leave any child behind and to produce for our society. Help them out - go to school, get there on time every day, do the assigned work and cooperate with the teachers. You might be amazed to find out how this can pay off for you. Millions of people have made it work for them and you can too. The vast majority of Americans are the product of public schools. And listen, if you do commit crimes, I'm sorry but the penalties are going to pinch. That's the point.
10
There are a lot of smart people in criminal justice academia, just like the author of this article. I’m mystified that they cannot come up with a penalty that doesn’t inconvenience the criminals. I suggest they get back to the drawing board and solve this problem once and for all.
7
You feel predators should not be inconvenienced? What about their victims, who are often left dead or permanently disabled by criminals? Why is it ok to inconvenience the victims, but not the predators?
2
Nobody has said anything about decriminalizing or lowering penalties on those kinds of crimes so stop being disingenuous. We're talking about "crimes" mostly defined as such to bring in money for the municipality - no real victims in sight.
All fines should be proportional to individual wealth, otherwise they are intrinsically unjust and ineffective.
No way, I don't want to pay more because I have more education and make more money then some dope committing crimes each day.
These are paltry sums for people who violate the law and should not be given a free pass for their transgressions against civilized society. If you want a good comparison of true injustice in the USA go to a hospital or doctor's clinic and look at their prices just for getting ill or having an accident. If you think these prosecutors are cold blooded just look at hospital billing offices.
Wake up!
6
Ok so in other words, we just shouldn’t have any punishments. Could have just been honest and said that, and saved a lot of space.
8
Correct! If you've read other NYT editorials on this subject, you realize that this IS exactly what they want.
1
‘They are often poor, unemployed and people of color’
Here is another thing they have in common: they committed a crime!
7
No incarceration. No fines. The author makes no suggestions as to what punishment would be appropriate.....making the convicted watch Fox News for a month?
4
If is hard to feel sorry for people who break our laws. They should stop and think first before committing a crime that may cost them heavy fines. If you do not want to pay, behave yourself. It is as simple as that.
5
The article makes it sound like criminal punishments are inflicted on innocent people who have no control or influence on what is being done to them. If you don't want a $250 fine, then don't walk around with marijuana. If you're willing to risk a financial penalty and decide to break the law, I have a hard time feeling bad for you if the fine is burdensome. Also, it's not like there isn't precedent. A speeding ticket will get you a hefty fine PLUS your insurance premiums increase. Also, if you want to talk about financial burden then talk about getting charged with OUI. Lawyer fees, court fines, and losing license (and possibly employment) should be enough to make you think twice before driving drunk.
5
I see. Let there be no fixed fines, but rather a percentage of the guilty party's income. You don't have to be a genius to see where that will lead.
The gov't is strapped for money..so...go where the money is. Overload affluent areas with police cars, speed traps, entrapment gimmicks, etc so the fines can bring in enough money from one week's take in an affluent area than in a whole year in a poor one. In fact, don't look for "fineable" infractions in poor areas at all. Its not cost effective.
The law is there for a reason. The penalties are usually known ahead of time for breaking the law. The penalty should be the same for anyone "knowingly and deliberately" breaking the law. Sometimes when you make your bed, you are obligated to sleep in it! If you can't afford the $250, don't break the law. It makes no difference what "other people" can afford. Your decision is yours alone and has nothing to do with what anyone else may do.
4
Haha - we certainly could learn a lesson from the pendulum swinging toward over-policing the affluent rather than the poorer communities. It would be good for them to experience a bit of harassment to see how the other half lives.
The legal system is broken, and the evidence for this is simple: having more money results in a better outcome almost every time. That is the true guage of fairness in the system, and ours fails miserably. The accumulation of petty fees and fines for poor people are a symptom of this larger disease.
So if you’re poor, you get a free pass for minor crimes? Maybe if you can’t afford a $250 fine you shouldn’t commit the crime?
4
Or maybe we could think outside the box?!?! What are the underlying causes of most criminal activity? For example: we know that victims of child sexual abuse or child physical abuse often result in substance abuse/addictions, which create opportunities for criminal activity. Say driving under the influence or dealing to support your habit. What if victims of child sexual/physical abuse got the needed mental health services to possibly prevent the common need to self-medicate? What if treatment was available and affordable? Which it is anything but today?
What if we reversed the ever increasing income inequality that leaves the poorest among us alternatives to tempting criminal activity because there are no jobs or any that offer a living wage? What if we actually provided adequate legal counsel to defendants? Or maybe made progress in ending racism causing change in our racially biased culture, institutions (aka: criminal justice system)? Or held batterers accountable for their abuse crimes? Or a hundred other possible responses! We can't go on just rescuing those babies from the river. We have to go upstream and stop whoever/whatever is throwing them in the river in the first place. That has to be part of criminal justice reform of our industrialized justice system complex!
"The poorest among us" are actually senior citizens, because for millions SS benefits are around 50% below the Federal poverty level. And seniors can't get jobs, either. But you don't see seniors committing many crimes, do you?
1
What will the prosecutors do now that Sessions has announced he will rescind the Obama rules regarding marijuana? Jail, fines, or both. Both would be my guess.
Paying one's debt to society with worthless Federal Reserve Notes is the answer.
Wow, I thought I was the only one who felt this way! This is one of the [many] problems of the justice system. Unless you are a lawyer justice is a economic burden. Having endured the petty behavior of lawyers in court, I can tell you, that justice is quite the joke in this country. Only the dumb go to court, it is not worth it.
"Death and taxes" is fast becoming "Death". We are doing away with taxes. Service fees for everything are much better. Want to use the city park down the block? Pay up!
House is burning down? Need the local Fire Department? Have your credit call ready before you dial!
Are you being burgled at midnight? Call 911 but .. no credit card = no patrol car.
Want your street lights on night? Pay up!! In advance of course.
Kids have a math test? Yes but your gotta pay to have it administered. To $ = no test = no grade. Try getting in Harvard w/o grades.
But heck - NO TAXES!!
So what is a real solution? I worked in the criminal justice system for years where it was obviously regressive to impose fines on poor people and incarceration was not at all warranted for misdemeanors. But if there is no fine, no incarceration, and they fail at community service, what is the incentive where they repeatedly commit crime? I hear "compassion" over and over but is that how equal justice is supposed to work? Let your heart bleed all over the place and law abiding citizens are viewed as suckers?
14
Community service, classes, rehab, all of these things give back to the community, give a better chance at the person bettering themselves rather than relapsing, but all must stop being prohibitively expensive, as should our ability to be fairly represented in the justice system in the first place. For misdemeanors especially, it should never be about "incentive" in the punishment sense, it should be about finding constructive ways to guide people towards better practices. Incarceration and taking what little money poor people have certainly hasn't proven effective in this, so at this point, new solutions are necessary. Holding onto a failing practice until we have proof of something better isn't helpful to anyone except those who literally profit from it.
This article is as interesting as the readers responses. Notice the division among the readers.
I venture to say that this divisiveness is rooted in an unequal understanding of what "just" is and the force of the justice system to implement what we believe is just.
The definition of the word "just" is something like "morally right and fair". But notice that of course the law is not designed to be morally right and fair. The law just encodes what a majority believes must be behaviors that are to be adhered by everybody.
As such the law is often not "morally right and fair" and it perpetuates the prejudices (by democratic principles) that a majority holds. These perpetuations are only held in check by constitutional rights that forbids laws that discriminate in just certain senses (for example race and gender).
The divisiveness then is rooted that for example it is not "right and fair" to forbid use and punish the use of marijuana while being indifferent to the consumption of alcohol as long as you are not driving drunk.
Those of us who are privileged enough to enjoy our lives within the boundaries of the law because we are fine with alcohol rather than marijuana are thus utterly undisturbed by seeing the "others - the users of marijuana" punished.
I think it is self evident that this has nothing to do with being just (in the moral sense) but just just in the legal sense.
2
Jzuend, I also think that the concept of justice must also include the consequences of actions. Part of the partisan division you (and I) see is how people balance their views on consequences vs. kindness. Both can be morally right and fair, but different balances will lead to very different decisions.
As a prosecutor I struggle with this every day. I do not want to jail people because they are poor. At the same time, my job is to represent the community and prosecute offenders for violating laws the community imposed on itself.
The most frustrating crime to prosecute is driving with a suspended license. Where I work there are two kinds of DLSs: DLS for a DUI with a mandatory $300 fine; and DLS for failure to pay a fine. The latter we typically send to a court diversion program where defendants get guidance and time to pay off fines and the case is dropped. DUI DLS cannot be diverted and I dislike the minimum fine. To reinstate a license a defendant needs to take a $400 specialty class, a $50 victim panel class, and pay the $75 reinstatement fee. However, to pay the reinstatement fee, defendants must have proof that they have special insurance -- SR 22-- which, because of their DUI conviction, has high premiums. Often times the last roadblock to get reinstated is taking the $400 course. Yet, I have to fine someone $300 because they cannot pay the $400 for the required course in the first place!
In such cases, we give defendants time (by delaying cases) to fulfill their requirements with the understanding that if they do what they have to do then we will dismiss the charge.
I work in a rural state where transportation is critical to survival. People need to drive to get to work and fulfill their responsibilities.
2
An excellent column. It is simply wrong to impose burdens that people cannot meet for relatively minor offenses. These fines are just another tax.
I was unfairly issued a speeding ticket, which I decided to fight. First I had to go to court to state I was fighting it. then I had to go back another day to fight it. In my case the cop didn't show up, probably because he knew he had issued a bogus ticket, so I got out of the ticket. I am pretty well compensated, so no big deal to twice drive the 50 mile round trip, pay to park, and buy myself something to eat. For people of lesser means? Big dollars. I am a salaried person. Thus, no cost to me to miss work for two days in court. For hourly people? Minimum wage people? A big deal to miss work. So many people just let their (equally bogus in some cases) tickets/fines pile up and eventually they go to jail or do community service. Again-- missing work with all that implies. Folks-- there has got to be a better way.
1
In many instances the fines assessed on individuals by the courts are for driving or parking infringements. Many small town municipalities finance their government off the backs of the poor. For instance, a driver is given a ticket for parking or a driving violation. They can't afford to pay the fine so additional fines are levied by the court. Their license is then suspended for not paying the original fine. Should they be pulled over for a check, a ticket is now written for driving with a suspended license and additional fines are levied against the perpetrator for not paying the original fines. BTW it's current practice for the municipalities to suspend one's license for non-payment of fines for parking/driving violations. I was in court and was able to see first hand how an individual's parking ticket bloomed into a $1000 fine for a myriad of so called offenses. This is happening over and over in small towns. No violence was done by anyone nor against anyone. Fines were assigned to the guilty without any thought of whether they could afford them or if they had the financial resources to pay them. This is not justice, it's highway robbery!
16
What do you suggest as an alternative?
You also seem to imply that only the poor receive traffic tickets which is patently false
1
I am in complete agreement regarding fees for using the system, these are unconscionable and need to be more realistic in regards to lower income people. Hey the oligarchy continue to grow rich on the backs of the incarcerated. How come to make a phone call to family someone has to pay around 30 cents per minute plus user fees, etc.?
Not so sure I am completely aligned with you on fines. If we are going to move away from jail sentences, and I am all for that, then the penalty has to inflict some pain. Fining someone $20 doesn't cut it (word joke intended) for me, I am absolutely against legalized marijuana except for medical reasons. I spent too many years in Child Protection seeing the immense damage these low level drugs can do to shrug my shoulders and legalize all usage. I still want to send a message that drug use by one person potentially harms others and the way to do that is financial suffering. Hey we inflict serious financial damage on folks for DUI, no matter what their financial means. The average for a first offence is a cost of around $4000 and up, sometimes the real financial loss is closer to 10K, not easily absorbed by even middle class.
1
Here in Virginia the fines are written into the statue. For class 1 misdemeanors (the most serious misdemeanors), the maximum fine is $2,500.00. Rarely have I had a client on which the maximum fine has been imposed. Typically, our defendants have a portion of the fine suspended. And defendants are rarely jailed for not paying fines and court costs; instead, their drivers licenses are suspended. This triggers a vicious cycle for the client, who now has to deal with the court and the DMV, and impacts their ability to get to work.
Our courts are more interested in defendants paying the restitution that was ordered, especially for felony convictions. Most of the judges I appear before are willing to give the folks a fighting chance to make their payments. Most orders give defendants 60 or 90 days after their release from incarceration to make their first payment. But when a defendant has had plenty of time to pay and has made little to no effort, the courts lower the boom, and rightly so. Restoring the victim is one of the goals of punishment, and is a tradition carried over from before we had modern court systems. While the criminal justice system as a whole is in need of reform, I don't believe the practice of making restitution to victims will ever go away, and I'm not sure it should. At some point, defendants must be held accountable to their victims.
2
My thanks to the author for illuminating dark machinery that few of us know about. To be penalized with excessive fines and fees can blight a life as badly as jail time would do. And alter the meaning of "paying one's debt to society!" Criminal offenders as a group tend to be poorly educated, illiterate, unskilled, unemployed and, in far too many instances, mentally ill, so what good can come of imposing financial obligations they can never mmto discharge? Our people once held rehabilitation to be a worthy aim of the Justice system. I'd like to see us revive that principle. Ruinous fines and fees don't rehabilitate folks,
The real crime in America is being broke. Simple as that. It hardly takes a study.
24
"These people" who commit crimes " are paying for a system that we all benefit from."?Nonsense
None of us benefit from people who commit crimes.
This Opinion sympathizes with the criminals who make life miserable for others.
The lesson should be to obey the law and avoid legal problems.
7
Whining endless whining
(1) The fine for a misdemeanor is typically about $1,000, which can be unmanageable for a low-income person.....These people are paying for the system of justice from which we all benefit, but they cannot afford to do so. They are often poor, unemployed and of color.
Doesn't benefit me if they get arrested. They are the ones who landed themselves in the problem so they can pay the bill for whatever reason they did the crime - stupidity, arrogance, recklessness whatever.
Here is an option. Don't want the fine then D O N O T D O T H E C R I M E
No bar fights without injuries (misdemeanor battery)
No driving without a license
No diving without valid plates and insurance
No DUIs (first few times are misdemeanors)
No speeding or driving recklessly
Etc etc etc
(2) Drug courts can and often do make people pay for their own assessment, treatment and frequent drug testing.
So what? If you are convicted of a dug offense, you CHOOSE to use the drugs
Take some personal responsibility for getting yourself in a mess. Want the soft landing of drug court then pay the costs or you can always choose jail.
Gee so what should we do with people who drive without a license. do drugs, get in minor fights, steal stuff at a misdemeanor $$ amount when they wail they can't pay the bill for their misconduct because they are "poor"?
Pat them on the head, give them a lollipop and send them on their way?
Can't pay the fine and costs. don't do the crime
8
You think making people destitute will improve society?
2
If they can afford the drugs they can afford the fine.
6
If the justice you receive is more dependant on your bank statements than your actual transgressions, then it's not really justice is it? The fact that it's called the justice system is a sick joke, they ought to put money on one side of those scales held by blindfolded 'lady justice' outside those court buildings.
So, liberals here stand mute when an individual of limited economic means chooses to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on drugs, but moans indignantly if that same person is prosecuted for buying these drugs and is assessed a $250 fine.
You cannot make this stuff up.
6
So.... no incarceration and a fine that doesn't actually hurt?
In other words, the headline of the article should read "Justice Shouldn't Come With a Punishment".
7
Seen from an European point of view these fines en lieu of taxes are a scandal that stinks to heaven. Nothing to add.
1
OMG so you have money to buy the marijuana but not money to pay the fine ( I presume everyone using this drug is solely using it for medical purposes and accordingly would not use any of this precious disposable income on intoxicants and narcotics)
. You are welcome to retain ALL the income you receive (most likely) through public funding (welfare, EITC, disability etc) and just spend some time in jail.
This world has just got plain mad.
5
While I agree with the general premise of the article, it paints with an extremely broad brush and doesn't identify the locales where unfair practices are alleged to occur. In my jurisdiction a person charged with underage drinking pays about $177 in court costs and does some amount of community service. One can argue whether the $177 is excessive, but why should society pay the costs of processing a defendant for his/her misdeeds? Yes, the amount may be a hardship, but if it were easy to pay the defendant wouldn't learn a lesson.
4
It might be worth remembering a Biblical formula for punishment in the case of non-violent crime: four times the monetary value involved in the crime. If the crime/misdemeanor is possession of banned substances, such a fine would be minor indeed. If it were a Bernie Madoff-level Ponzi scheme, or a bank embezzlement, it would be huge.
As usual, our lawmaking Con-gress gets it backward.
How about this: the federal government and each state passes a law that declares that a person that is convicted of a crime and fails to pay the assessed fine is not entitled to the protection of the minimum wage law so that he or she is free to agree with any employer to work for less than the stated minimum wage and indeed for any wage that he or she considers acceptable. By doing that he or she would arguably agree to be exploited for a period of time and thereby do some real community service. And by doing that he or she would make a real start at entering society as a productive member rather than returning to the streets and a life of crime. Good idea, no?
Why not just bring back the poorhouses?
1
You have to start somewhere with reforming the system. Perhaps monetary charges should only be assessed against low-income people who are actually found guilty, as well as everyone else.
Justice costs money. Perhaps if the burden falls on those who have monetary clout, the system may be fine-tuned so people aren’t arrested just because of, say, what they look like.
But justice should also act as a deterrent against those who are willing to commit the crimes.
My hired farm hand got a ticket as a young unemployed adult and could not pay the $75 fine. This led eventually to suspended license, loss of license, driving without a license jail time (court costs) probation (monthly fees).
Because he couldn’t drive he didn’t have employment in which he could advance and had to pay for rides to his probation obligation. He is thousands of dollars in debt to the system and without the means to pay that, get a car, and maintain insurance for the length of time required to get his license back. That $75 dollar ticket effectively ruined his potential. Meanwhile, we, society, pay for food stamps and Medicaid for him and his child.
The private companies that chase people for the mentioned payments profit.
4
Beyond the skewed penalty on the poor, some fees defy our bedrock principal of "innocent until proven guilty." Jurisdictions across the country have started charging fees levied whether charges are dropped or not. Kentucky even bills for the cost of incarceration, even if not convicted.
For an innocent middle class person, the fees may be a minor part of the trauma of incorrect arrest. But for someone poor, it may be a child's breakfast.
2
Let's start with a simple premise. Things cost money. Second principle, there's a finite amount of money that our governments (city, state, federal) have to spend. Third principle, it would be better to spend more money on things like education, after-school programs, and public education. OK so even if we somehow managed to raise taxes on the rich, we may not have money to do all of that and have free court and free drug treatment and free public defenders. So in my book, I'd say let's invest in young people and try to give them legitimate alternatives to stay out of trouble. Let's also decriminalize the more minor "quality of life" crimes like loitering, marijuana possession, spitting, etc. But for those who are still gonna be out there starting fights, vandalizing things, and generally making their communities worse? Sorry, there should still be consequences to your actions.
2
Let's put things in perspective: $250 right now seems to be a cost of an ounce of a legal weed in California. Texas treats MJ as a misdemeanor up to four ounces.
I'm afraid that I stop buying this argument. It's like saying that a speeding fine that's slightly higher than the cost of a tank of gas is unaffordable - yes, it's a bummer, I agree, but you can't claim that you can't afford the speeding fine if you can clearly afford to spend the same amount of money to fill up the car to drive in the first place.
1
The best Justice that money can buy and equality under the law only if you can afford it otherwise your guilt is made real by the punishment for any failure to pay your due.
Not helped at all by the fact that the poor and people of color have been overly targeted, searched, checked and profiled over and above their representative % of the general population and thus ensuring that they will more likely be issued/hit with the fines and costs that will rapidly ensure their difficulty in managing these extra requirements and costs will push them into further debt and in many cases, jail time...both of which will disrupt their lives further to a point where they are unable to make it through....
This was most clearly revealed by the unfair targeting and harming of the African Americans who lived in Ferguson and who it was found were significantly funding the City administration's budget hugely by all the measures , fines and and penalties laid upon them hugely disproportionately to their numbers and actual behavior versus those of most others.
By any right or reasoning what has been and in many places continues to be the case across the country is in fact the greatest crime being committed in America against others and so far it seems, been no penalties or fines for those propagating so unfairly what has been done so much for so long, to so many.
If Justice is blind, then it needs to take a hard look at itself so that it can see a clearer way forward.
I see a lot of commenters here advocating for a sliding scale system, where the fine is proportionate to income. I would oppose such a move, for several reasons.
First, a crime is a crime. It does no more damage to a society when a rich person sells crack than when a poor person sells crack.
Second, this sounds like another way for the working class to subsidize the couch-surfing, drug-dealing class. As a member of the working class, I am not interested.
And don't think the rich will pay. The poor will pay little under a sliding scale, the rich will use every legal means to pay nothing, and the middle class will get clobbered, again.
This also further blurs the line between a fine and a tax. Already, we too often use fines to fill coffers (as do many towns, which include speeding tickets in their annual budgets), and use taxes as fines (like cigarette taxes, which are clearly designed as punishment for smoking). We need to disentangle these, not further entangle them.
Lastly, I don't understand the original impulse. We are supposed to stop incarcerating criminals because prison is painful. But we shouldn't fine them either, because fines are painful. So what exactly is NYT advocating for here, painless fines? In other words, no punishment at all?
3
Basically, yes, if you have read other editorials on this subject, NYT IS advocating no punishment, even for violent criminals.
Day fines and other systems of income-proportional penalties make obvious sense. If a millionaire gets the same speeding ticket fine as a low-income wage earner, it creates a huge injustice. One can laugh it off; the other could end up homeless.
3
Justice has a price: $250. Add it up to police sandbagging and traffic light cameras.
So much wrong. We have lost perspective. First, criminalizing everything. Possession of marijuana should not be a crime. Period. Second, not everyone who uses the court system is an offender. Why are we all being financially penalized for having rights? Third, take traffic courts. It's all about getting a good lawyer, making good deals and affording to pay for the whole thing. Does this really deter speeding, tailgating, failing to signal, using a cell phone while driving, not fixing that broken taillight? Obviously not because unsafe driving is an epidemic. How about the old concept of "work-release"? Offenders, especially nonviolent, should be allowed to do needed, menial work in the community in lieu of fines and imprisonment.
2
I'm hopeful no one really believes that those who break a law shouldn't be held accountable. (I purposefully did not use the word "criminal" to describe every person who is arrested and fined.) The issue has long been that the focus of local police departments is on "the bad neighborhoods," where people of color and the poor live. This system requires hundreds of thousands of cops who all need something to do. If you have an ounce of pot and smoke a joint in your $500,000 home in a wealthy suburb, your chance of being arrested, labeled a criminal and becoming a revenue generating device to support the system is zero. And its these same people who will comment from here to kingdom come that "criminals" need to be held accountable and pay the price.
2
Wow, a complex issue that virtually no one understands. The best way to address the inequality would be the use of body cams with all recordings made public. That way a rich guy, a politician, or a pretty woman getting a free pass will become public knowledge. As for the myth that the criminal justice system is about reform, well that is clearly incorrect. The criminal justice system is all about protecting the public from offenders, commonly known as public safety. As for public defenders, I have seen many cut a deal with prosecutors and arresting agencies without ever consulting the client. It is quick and easy, requires virtually no legal expertise other than a paralegal and ensures that favors will be returned in the future. As for justice, that is a novel idea that does not exist in reality. Never has, never will. Rich or influential people get off from punishment because they have power even though many of their violations would bring consequences they could shrug off with their pocket change. And by the way, this set of privelege is not really race based but network based and dollar bill based. If poor blacks think they should not be caught and punished then police agencies need to stop interacting with them since interactions often place both the supposed offender and law enforcement personnel in jeopardy. Why pull someone over, risk getting shot or wrongly accused just so someone can happily escape justice.
1
So no jail time, no fines, no nothing? People who can pay a fine should while those who can’t don’t see any penalty? Really?
6
Here's a general rule of economics that applies to fining poor people for minor offenses:
"$100 is a lot more money to a person who does not have it than it is to a person who has it."
I learned this the hard way when I was laid off in the 1970s.
1
Welcome to the new debtor's prison.
Having sat in court a few times during my life, I've seen poor person after poor person threatened with jail if they don't pay weregild. The fines, as described in the article, just mount up, and inability to pay makes them a mountain.
Fair or not, too many municipalities have discovered they can get a good income by, for example, issuing tons of traffic tickets. The situation can get much worse, as described here, for example: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/get-out-of-jail-inc
And here's Sessions, who is a top villain in my book, listening to the voices in his head that support his hatred of "those people":
"Sessions Says to Courts: Go Ahead, Jail People Because They’re Poor"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/opinion/sessions-says-to-courts-go-ah...
3
I am reading a lot of "well, don't commit the crime comments" and I respectfully submit that that isn't the point of this article. Crimes that come with a ticket aren't murder, assault or dealing drugs. There's are special words for these minor infractions -- misdemeanors or violations. Puffing a little weed on your stoop does not have major consequence to the community and shouldn't have outsized consequences only for poor people. If the infraction is minimal, and the impact is minimal, the punishment should be, too. And gauging it by income is the fair thing to do. I have friends who have millions and smoke weed all the time. Maybe we can flip this issue on its head and instead ratchet up the fines and fees for them -- maybe $1 million per small offence. Sound right to you?
5
Fines are a form of punishment. Before imposing a fine judge should inquire about ability to pay and have the authority to order a payment schedule. Payments could be made by mail or in person. For example, a $250.00 fine could be paid at the rate of $25.00 per month and each time a payment is made the offender is reminded that he or she should not repeat the behavior that led to a fine being imposed.
3
So the definition of "progressive justice" is no consequences for breaking the law.
I particularly enjoyed this gem: "Jurisdictions could reduce justice-related budgets by restructuring drug-sentencing laws to match public opinion..."
And of course we taxpayers will need to cough up for "free drug and alcohol treatment programs, low-cost housing, restorative justice and job training." The "restorative justice" theme being pushed in the NYC schools by Mayor De Blasio should be a warning that progressive shouldn't mean permissive.
18
kwb,
You must've read a different article.
A person with means can easily pay a fine of $250, a poor person cannot.
So the extent of the "consequences" depend upon one's financial status, not fairness in how they're experienced.
This article addresses that inequality. Give it another go.
1
I had a defendant appear before me for littering.
The fine was something like $100.
The man was homeless and - very clearly - mentally a bit slow.
He had been given a ticket by an officer for taking the muffin he was given at his shelter in the morning and feeding the birds. He liked birds and didn't want them to be hungry.
I find a way to dismiss the ticket.
But seriously, what a waste of time, and what a cruel society we have.
Dickens would shudder.
34
There are two types of judges in my book, those whose compassion turns a bad law or the bad application of a good law into justice, as mayor LaGuardia did when he found himself in a similar situation when he was a judge ( look it up) and those that are pharisees and allow the letter of the law to override the aims of justice. Thank you for your dedication to justice!
1
It's really not complicated. If you can't afford the penalty, don't commit the crime.
42
I take it you are not a person of color. Being colored is a crime and very likely to get you into court without committing any crime.
5
Ah, Amy. Life is so simple when you think black and white, isn't it?
The majority of petty criminals lack intelligence, executive functioning, and impulse control. While you or I can look at a possible crime and decide the possibility of being caught outweighs potential gain, these people can not.
But those realities don't even touch the point of what is going on. People in the system should not fund the system. To use your phrase, "It's as simple as....." The courts should be paid for from the general fund. Period. I was amazed to find out when I last had a traffic ticket 12 years ago, my mandated fees were far greater than the fine! I remember that I helped fund Mothers Against Drunk Driving! A guaranteed income stream for a political organization!
3
The punishment needs to fit the crime.
If a NYC school child looses their metro card and jumps a turnstile to get home they can land in jail with a criminal record.
I personally know several teenagers who spent the night in jail for having an open can of beer. We are paying for them to go to jail, paying for the court costs, and paying with teens who grow into adults who rail against the police. Is it worth it?
A person can be arrested, not be able to make bail, lose work and possibly their jobs before even being tried--they may not even be guilty. How can this possibly be good for our citizens?
Did you know it it a crime in NY state to flirt? It is illegal to speak on an elevator??
It in nonsense to say "It's really not complicated. If you can't afford the penalty, don't commit the crime." It is in fact very complicated. A judge should be able to use their judgement (that is what we pay them for) to apply an APPROPRIATE punishment for that person and their particular "crime".
19
The problem with criminal justice in America is that there are way too many crimes and colored criminals and too little justice, fairness and morality. By focusing on finance you are treating a symptom of a much deeper grave systemic injustice.
With 5% of humanity the 2.3 million Americans in prison are 25% of the total prisoners. Including those persons in prison or charged and awaiting trial along with those awaiting sentencing exhaustion of appeals and post incarceration supervision the number triples. And while only 13% of Americans are black, 40% of the prisoners are black. Blacks are persecuted for doing the same things while black that white people perform with no criminal justice consequences. Prison is the carefully cleverly carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude.
Criminal justice should focus on deterring, arresting, prosecuting, convicting sentencing/imprisoning/fining the organized, the career, the violent and the big kingpin thieves and liars. Without any regard to their gender, color aka race, ethnicity, faith, national origin, socioeconomics and education. Except for the most heinous and career offenders an effort should be made to rehabilitate non-violent and violent criminals. Drugs should be legalized and treated like a potentially health abuse problem akin to alcohol and tobacco
7
More coloured criminals has nothing to do with whether justice is unequally applied.
1
You ignore the statistic, sir, that a significant portion of crime occurs in the dense urban areas, and the black man is committing crimes at rates far greater than do other racial or ethnic groups.
I agree with you that "justice" should be evenly applied and that common sense should used by both the arresting and prosecuting officials.
I would go further and suggest that somehow the trillions that we pour into societal and civic improvement needs a significant refocus so as actually to derive societal and civic benefit from the astounding sums being spent.
I will not, however, grant the criminal element a pass just because his skin color is dark or his status as an American is hyphenated.
1
"Blacks are persecuted for doing the same things while black that white people perform with no criminal justice consequences"
Would you care to develop that idea? There are reliably persistent stats on Black criminality, which would suggest that incarceration rates for Blacks, compared to other ethnicities, reflect actual behavioral differences rather than a prejudiced Justice system.
2
The problem with this is the same across the income inequality issue for someone with money the fines are no deterence. For those with little money they are crippling. I read an article about a traffic fine in Sweden based both on the offense and income of the offender resulting in a huge traffic fine. If it had been the U.S. he would have received an inconsequential fine relative to his income.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7939058/Swedish-motorist-facing...
5
Dennis, an inconsequential fine is no deterrent, it is more like a permit.
1
Great idea. Tie the penalty to income. It will then have true deterrent effect for the Richie Riches.
These fines are too often dumped on the people least able to afford them. Rich defendants have well-paid lawyers, and will happily pay fines in lieu of jail time. So, once again, in this capitalist country, was the gentler, kinder law move toward fines versus incarceration a nod to the poor, or yet another service to the rich. The poor will still go to jail for being unable to pay the high fines.
7
Sorry, but we can't custom-tailor the justice system to suit each criminal.
14
polymath,
The system is already tailored to suit each criminal.
The well-off can afford to break the law, the poor can't.
The goal is to make the tailoring more fair.
1
Why not? Context is not everything.
"Of course, poor defendants who are convicted of crimes should be punished. But let’s hold them accountable without building huge debts they cannot pay."
Sooo accountability without accountability?
I'm sorry, unpopular opinion but no. Committing a crime should not necessitate a public good response upon the citizenry--specifically not for misdemeanors. Our taxes pay for prisons, public defenders, and much of the criminal system vis a vis indigent people.
When people commit crimes and are convicted, consequences are in order. Simple as that. I'm a Democrat, slightly liberal, but I'm tired of this notion that a slap on the wrist should be utilized every single time a misdemeanor occurs. Committing a crime, or being indignant has consequences. And 1000$ to 250$ is over a 30 percent decrease. That seems like an appropriate starting response if you ask me. Certainly, you don't expect crimes to be paid freely. Services and bills need to be paid, that's just a simple fact. There's too many people who are not committing crimes for this to even pass muster.
Crimes do not deserve subsidies. Let's stop pretending that they do.
30
Abraham,
A $1000 or $250 fine in Texas for smoking a joint does not exist in Colorado, where pot is legal.
That's only one aspect of an unfair and obscenely partial system of "justice."
Tax dollars already pay for far too many things that are of little or not benefit to the public. Using them to administer justice more fairly should appeal to someone even only "faintly liberal."
3
So, tell me then what type of justice should be administered? Without creating a slippery slope, it's not possible. Because at the heart of this article was a said "fine" to be paid in regards to those who get convicted of a crime. No other underlying issue was pertinent to the original point I made--accountability.
To your point of legality it's the Federal law. And this issue everyone knew it was going to be a problem when Colorado pass the law. Is that right, maybe not, but it's the law. And in the court of law that's what decisions are based on.
You wanna talk about problems in the criminal justice system, have at it. There are many, and we can have that discussion. As an aspiring lawyer, my hope is to work towards fixing those problems. But don't straw man my entire point by stating that I don't think Justice should be administered fairly.
What I think I made clear in my original post is that there has been an attempt to work at lowering these fees, and it has been successful. What you have is an attorney from Texas who instead of pursuing lenghty criminal cases which would mandate years in prision, aimed instead to fine the defendant.
I would think everyone would agree Liberty saved (>) wins every time against a small fine. Poor, rich, middle, low, all convicted persons should pay a fine if that becomes a law. If we disagree there, fine. But I stand by what I said.
I see Philadelphia was one of the “forward looking” municipalities mentioned. Perhaps the author should have also mentioned that Philly is currently experiencing a major violent crime wave, and a return to the murder rates of the ‘90s. So are Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis and many others that have bought into the hands off approach to criminal justice.
Meanwhile, cities like NYC that had decades of broken windows policing, stop and frisk, and other policies that make life for entry level habitual offenders difficult, continue to enjoy declining levels of crime. Crime levels so low and historically unprecedented that it was laughably presented as a fortuitous “mystery” by the clueless progressive writers at the Times who covered the phenomenon just last week.
Progressives have a major blind spot on this issue, and until they wake up to the common sense of actually enforcing the law, Trump and the GOP is going to keep on driving a truck through their law and order gap to electoral victory.
You don’t lose 10,000 seats across all levels of government on goofy social issues and tarring of the term “liberal” alone. Majorities are and have abandoned the party because of basic bread and butter, safety and security issues.
Law enforcement is one of them. You promise higher taxes, less safety, and a lower quality of life for people who work hard and pay taxes, while offering fewer consequences, more handouts, and bigger breaks for law breakers and loafers.
15
Butch,
Your post is irrelevant.
The article nowhere discusses violent crime that merits jail time, but misdemeanors, many of them victimless, the fines for which can cripple a poor defendant but leave a well-off one untouched.
Stop and frisk was stopped in New York. It victimized innocent people more than it caught criminals. It is not what is reposnsible for the lowering crime rate.
2
Odd that this comment attributes NYC's fantastic decrease in crime, especially its lowest in half a century 2017 murder rate, to years of techniques like stop and frisk.
As has widely been reported the decision to dramatically reduce the number of stop and frisk events led to a continuing downward trajectory in crime rates. Many people, organizations and media outlets which vigorously fought ending stop and frisk have recently admitted that the astonishing results of a continued downward trajectory despite the cessation of this technique disproves the widespread notion that it was a helpful deterrent to crime.
The New York Daily News, for example, vigorously defended the practice in the past and fought efforts to end it. To their credit, they published a mea culpa editorial and happily celebrated this breakthrough: a technique which rarely led to arrests for actual crimes and which targeted, embarrassed and frightened many young people of color, was curtailed and still crime rates plummeted. We all hope that something was learned here- that things we are so sure will prevent crime sometimes do not, and may actually worsen community-police relations.
So, how can we be so sure that fines on the poor will prevent crime? We might be wrong, just like with stop and frisk. (Remember, we are talking about minor infractions and misdemeanors here.) Let's try another tactic - community service for example, and see what happens.
5
Providing housing or classes may be effective at rehabilitatation, but criminal acts must still carry consequences, and thus some form of punishment to provide deterance.
Community service seems like the only other option than fines or imprisonment, but we risk creating a slave class of workers that must work without pay, or work with no financial compensation to enable them stay in the rehab housing or classes. There is too much room for abuse.
I do believe that our justice system should prioritize corrections over punishment, but we already have a situation where jail is sometimes a better option than homelessness. Short of a welfare system that is a jail without guards and locks, there is a more fundamental problem of making the margins of socitiy productive members of society.
9
Recommending this comment b/c it’s the first to suggest that deterrence is a part of the justice process. Yes, laws need to be adjusted when they’re out of date or discriminatory, but at some point laws are the way we put teeth into rules of order. Have we raised generations so stupid they can’t weigh the consequences against the action ?
1
let me get this straight--low inome people have enough money to spend on drugs but the fine, when caught, is too much of a burden to impose on them? REALLY? maybe that would have mpre money if they didnt spend it on drugs?
cant have it both ways,no time served AND no fines. thats called no punishment.
21
I would also note that they usually seem to be carrying around an expensive cell phone and, presumably, having to pay the nosebleed rates that our cell phone providers think that they can get away with.
2
Oh right. Addicts have wonderful lives and complete control over their addictions. Such heartlessness.
bored critic,
Marijuana is not expensive. And it's legal now in many places.
The article is not talking about major crimes, but misdemeanors.
Have a little perspective.
Commit a crime , pay the price.
No sympathy here.
14
Ah, debtors' prison, just like the good old days...
8
Vacci, clearly you have no clue what a debtors prison is. Clue, it involves people not paying their bills and being forced into labor to pay those bills. Just saying.
$250 or 5 days. wait a minute, I'm thinking.
Exactly! For someone who's unemployed and has no family to care for, saving on food for 5 days instead of being out $250 seems like a no-brainer.
The U.S. preys on the poor and keeps them in their place. Imagine going to jail for not paying a fine due to a broken taillight? Fine people for being poor. Thomas Jefferson would love that one.
7
It’s deeply sad that people think being cruel should be a normal response.
And so do I
Purdue Pharma made billions selling opioids in numbers far beyond the possible need, made drug pushers out of physicians and corrupted hospital policies on pain management, addicted hundreds of thousands and killed thousands. Purdue was fined an amount less than the cost of advertising.
Our country and our people are under a spell. Americans think that the middle class tax break of $1200 per year is equivalent to a rich person getting a break of $770K per year. No politician or academic or ethicist has explained that a person making subsistence wages and a rich person are not equals and the percent of their incomes paid in taxes is not equal. Not even close. A person who makes $30K and pays $3K in taxes is not comparable to a person who makes $1million and pays $350K still has $650k left. Normal people must be reminded that rich people paying 35% still has 65% and that is fair when the poor are barely surviving. It is time for the meaning of fines and taxes had equity.
Purdue and other opioid manufacturers must be fined enough to pay for the addiction and deaths. In fact they should be incarcerated or executed having their assets seized and corporate charters dissolved. How can corporations escape meaningful punishment while those with little or nothing be fined beyond their capacity to pay? The answer is corruption by those with money who write and bend law who subvert law and corrupt the justice system.
58
Truly rich don’t pay 35%. Ever.
1
And someone making $30k doesn't pay $3000 in income taxes, either.
Perdue manufactures pain medication that we all need at some point. They didn't force anyone to take more meds than their doctor prescribed. The main reason that we have addicts is the use of opiates for recreational purposes. Not all addicts began this way, but the majority did.
You can demonize drug manufacturers all you want, but the end result from such an exaggerated response will be that you will suffer after surgery, or a car accident, or severe burns - all without any relief from pain. Incarceration, asset seizure, revocation of the corporate charter - all of these are excessive. Execution is absurd. In most states, we don't even execute mass murderers, rapists, and repeat felons. Yet you want to execute the head of a company that produces medication that we all need at some point? The CEO didn't force those pills down anyone's throat.
So there should be no jail and no fines?
How nice.
13
Marijuana is not a dangerous, addictive recreational drug and even has medicinal uses. Of course it has gotten a bad rap for political reasons and there remain too many uneducated citizens (including AG Sessions) who still see pot akin to opioids.
Marijuana was legal in the United States. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required labelling saying if it was in over-the-counter products. Then in the 1920's, Mexican immigrants introduced smoking weed and prejudice against them began. Violence was associated with smoking pot. The movie Reefer Madness looks silly in retrospect and was made as propaganda against ganja. The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act essentially made pot illegal. Nixon over-hyped marijuana as a cause of civil unrest by hippies, making it a Schedule 1 drug like heroin. The Reagan Administration started a nonsensical War on Drugs with zero tolerance that put too many in jail for decades long sentences for the crime of having a joint.
So weed is becoming legal in many states. Those states make good tax revenue from it and crime is not sky-rocketing in their locales. So here's the big question.
Why do American tax payers still pay private jails billions each year to house people arrested on archaic marijuana laws? They're not violent offenders and weed is not any more harmful than alcohol, tobacco or guns.
Wait... skip that last one. Guns kill 33,000 every year. But that's for another comment....
6
There are about 40,000 people imprisoned for charges that include marijuana, but that also include other charges like carry an illegal weapon.
About 20,000 are imprisoned for marijuana alone, but almost all of them are for distribution and criminal association. Only about 1%--that's 200 people nationwide--are in prison only for possession. Most of those are on second offense--they went to court diversion or community service the first time.
So, sorry, but the narrative of communities hollowed out because all the promising men of color have been wrongly jailed for smoking a joiint does not hold up.
1
Best comment on this thread!
Another example of what happens when the rich refuse to pay for the necessities of a functional society.
5
I feel sick everyone I read the news in the US. Why do human want to harm other in that way. How can a society evolve the come that way.
1
Ummm laws were created to protect the citizenry from the harms they may cause to one another. probably a good deterrent compared to previous punishment types.
2
The fees discussed in this important OpEd are a result of insufficient funding for our legal system, a result of years of Republican minded "budget cuts", and Democrats who placate rather than fight. This discussion barely scratches the surface with regard to the real cost of the legal system for the poor and middle class. Suppose a neighbor sued over a fence? How much would private representation cost? What about a divorce? Fees for almost any legal action? Are these court and legal fees so unmanageable because they are too high? Or is it that the middle class is too poor after years of "trickle down" economics? Has anyone looked at local, state and federal budget cuts and the effect on legal representation? If we, as citizens, can no longer afford a "day in court" , and if local and state municipalities can no longer afford to have courts, are we still a democracy?
46
You've hit the nail on the head. Court budgets have been cut time and time again. There aren't enough public defenders and most of the time they'll have their client accept a negotiated guilty plea rather than fight the injustice being done in order to clear another case of their busy desk. The justice system doesn't work in the USA. We've become a country of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
The only thing I agree with is here is the title - if a $250 fine isn't large enough to discourage breaking the law, perhaps it is time that the fines were increased.
The sticking point here isn't the poor's inability to afford fines, it is the scoundrels' unwillingness to obey the law.
8
When a crime has a victim, the victim's suffering isn't less because the perpetrator is poorer. When the crime has no victim, like simple drug use, it probably shouldn't be a crime at all. So the notion of "day fines" is wrong and absurd. Either fine people for the harm they did, or don't fine them at all.
6
Switzerland has day fines, and they work well. In a famous 2010 case, a foreigner was fined SFr1,080,000 (about $1 million) for driving his Mercedes SLS AMG more than 170 km/h over the speed limit. The Swiss police confiscate your car in serious cases, and the confiscated supercar paid for a good chunk of his fine. This sort of thing would work well here, too, and it would cut down on some of the antisocial arrogance that the wealthy are all too prone to. Steve Jobs was a notorious offender of handicapped-parking rules, for example; he just paid the piddling-to-him fines and kept on parking where he pleased.
2
This never stopped Swiss drivers from being notorious speeders on Italian highways, though.
This column makes a very strong argument for why the poor should obey the law.
9
redweather,
No, it doesn't.
It makes a strong argument for why the rich can afford to not obey the law.
1
One can try to make this a rich versus poor thing, like Alexes Harris does, but that just doesn't hold water. Unless one lives in a state that has legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, which I support, it's plain stupid to be driving around with a joint tucked away in a package of Newports. Can the rich better afford to pay a $250? Sure. But that's the thing about fines. We can't charge rich folks more. I guess you want the courts to determine a person's level of income before deciding how much he should pay. Not me.
1
"For those who hope to see the criminal justice system operate more fairly, this is an exciting time in the United States."
The U.S. incarcerates 6X as many of our people as the average wealthy nation, with a disproportionate percentage of them being either black or Hispanic, often sentenced to prison time for crimes that are forgiven when committed by whites.
This huge escalation of imprisonment has occurred in the last 30 years regardless of it uselessness as a tactic to achieve law and order. I don't know why some minor changes should excite any of us- trimming the edges of the unfairness of such a ghastly system is woefully inadequate.
What would be exciting is for the U.S. to study methods used by other modern nations to reduce crime and to keep citizens legally productive. The U.S. system focuses on revenge and is badly distorted by tribal impulses of the white power structure that control the levers of power.
We are a country with a modern economy but a primitive culture that fails to invest adequately in our human capital, especially in equal education of our children. The greatness of a nation is measured by its ability to assure its children reach their potential- our extraordinary high rates of incarceration and child poverty are proof of our failure.
59
"Juvenile, traffic, misdemeanor and felony courts all rely on monetary sanctions."
I question the use of the word "rely". I'd really like to see the accounting of these local law enforcement departments.
Civil societies are based on laws. Criminal reforms focuses not on society but on criminals. Reformers will only have legitimacy when their proposals Focus first and foremost on law abiding citizen not crimals
6
Chris,
Smoking pot does not make someone a "criminal." No one is harmed.
"Reform" refers to changing the system so it effectively rehabilitates real criminals.
That benefits law-abiding citizens.
The criminal justice system preys upon the poor. There is no real justice through the courts.
Basically, the entire criminal injustice system preys upon and oppresses the poor in order to maintain and perpetuate a huge prison and law enforcement industry. Most prison guards (euphemistically called corrections officers) and trigger-happy and violence-loving police would be otherwise unemployable, but in the USA these men are given free rein to beat, Taser, shoot, harass, arrest and oppress poor people and people of color.
When a judge in a self-congratulatory mood fines a poor woman $250 for the offense of driving while suspended, a ticket she got because she could not afford the earlier fine, that judge is taking food from the mouths of her children. Coming from the privileged class, most judges are clueless that to a poor person, $250 might as well be a million.
3
When slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment in 1865, there was a very convenient exception: "except as a punishment for a crime". Wealthy land owners found allies in Sheriffs & peace officers with a kickback. Criminal laws exploded. Everything from vagrancy (standing around after sunset) to whistling in public became a crime. Benign actions common to people of color were especially enforced.
The ulterior intent was to release bring back the freed slaves over simple technical violations of complicated laws. Inmate populations exploded, providing cheap or free manual labor. Slavery & Prohibition never really ended, they continue today, they just changed forms.
The average individual commits a felony a day, per the million page CFR, state, county & local ordinances. The legal system really has no shortage of targets, should it decide to enforce some of the laws selectively. And when there are few targets, law enforcement can conveniently run random virtue tests, cook up charges, doctor crimes, entrap, bait, reverse engineer intent and actions. The vast majority of crimes charged, indicted, plead or convicted have no victim either. Yes, the majority of crimes in the US today, are victimless and most never make it to trial by a jury of peers, they plead out. The state has enormous power at its disposal & its agents threaten to destroy anyone who refuses to plead guilty with enormous punishment.
There is only one way this will end. The pitchforks are coming.
1
There are many people who like to see the poor beaten harder. They say things like "if you don't like it don't commit the crime" or "Our goal should be for equal justice". These folks like things as they are because when the poor get beaten they can feel better about being middle class. The "middle class" knows that it is simply slaves working for wealthy oligarchs. So the only joy they get is seeing some poor people treated with cruelty. They are usually good religious people who also like the laws to punish the sinners. Which is why we have so many laws for things the government has no right to control. It all makes the religious middle class feel good about themselves. Besides, they work hard for the wealthy people like King Trump.
44
Chris, your argument seems to rely on a false sense that the poor are unable to obey the law. There are some things that do not have to be bought like manners, common decency and the willingness to help society by not being a criminal. Poor people can do this and to say that they are not capable of doing so reflects badly on your perception of the abilities of poor people.
Excellent post.
If a crime does not merit either incarceration or a fine, then maybe it isn’t a crime that society worries about—maybe it isn’t a crime. But if it is, then some punishment needs to follow.
It is true that for the indigent or others nearly so, any punishment can put them over the edge. But the article mistakenly conflates two issues. It should be the “social safety net”, from Medicaid to Legal Aid to Earned Income Tax Credits to myriad other programs (and private charities also contribute), that catches people when they fall. The criminal justice system should not be a redistributive mechanism or a form of public assistance/income support. Those are tasks for which it is unprepared and unlikely to perform well.
So yes, simplify the maze of fees and fines. But the punishment needs to fit the crime and behavior has consequences.
3
"But the punishment needs to fit the crime and behavior has consequences."
Do you feel that way about a man who is arrested and convicted of a crime 34 times and has never paid any of the fines associated with the conviction? A punishment that is too light invites scofflaws to ignore the entire justice system because he has no respect for the law.
There is a larger problem. Notwithstanding clear constitutional law to the contrary, for years local level judges have been fining defendants convicted of minor offenses and then jailing the defendants who were unable to pay the fines. This practice took place in many northern states, not only in the south. While I have no personal knowledge of the situation, I have read that this practice was prevalent in Ferguson.
3
$250 for me - it's a minor thing.
$250 for someone wealthier to me - it's meaningless. No deterrent at all.
$250 for someone working 3 minimum wage jobs to try to keep up with rent and hoping for some eventual promotion - that's the difference between keeping up with the bills and becoming homeless and losing a job due to the lack of housing.
The penalties for crimes should be equal. A wealthy person should not have a mere nuisance when they commit a crime, when the same crime for a poor person has a life destroying penalty. Money doesn't have the same meaning to all of us. There needs to be an income qualification to financial penalties.
105
The same could be said for ANY punishment. I have two kids, a wife, a mortgage, and a job I need to go to everyday. A 30 day jail sentence would be devastating for me, but not as much for someone who is unemployed with no family and few responsibilities.
1
What's the point of being rich if it doesn't buy you immunity from minor infractions and the occasional misdemeanor, and get you easier punishment if you get caught and convicted of a felony? Life it supposed to be easier for the rich; that way there is a devil to catch the hindmost and everyone keeps their nost to the grindstone or pays the consequences. (Turn up sarcasm detectors please).
2
If they are so tight with money why are they buying drugs
Let people do public service instead of paying fines and fees. Fit it into their work schedule so they don't miss work. This would also be a much more effective deterrent for people who make enough to not feel the pain of what for them are petty fines. A day spent picking up litter along a highway would be a great deterrent for a millionaire.
98
Public/community service (free labor) is expensive. Organizing jobs, obtaining supplies, supervision of work, accounting for offenders time requires paid employees, equipment, vans, drivers and managers. Paid for by more fines.
2
The issue raised here, that many people cannot afford fines that are imposed by the courts, does not have anything directly to do with fines for drug offenders, where the fine is imposed in place of criminal penalties. The same issue with fines is just as relevant in all manner of things for which fines are imposed, such as traffic and other civil violations. And when poor people cannot pay their traffic fines they are also subject to punitive measures, not least a warrant for their arrest.
The basic solution to this problem is to do as they do in many other countries where the fine is directly tied to the person's income. And the fact is that this is only fair because what is for a rich person an amount he doesn't think twice about the fine is nothing more that a tap on the wrist is for a person who cannot easily afford paying that fine, that fine is a serious penalty.
However fines in the US have always been written into the statute and changing it to a figure based on what a person can afford will require rewriting thousands of statutes.
That said the last people to have a right to complain over the fact that they cannot afford the fees and fines are those who got themselves into that trouble by committing crimes for which the state also has penalties for those crimes in the form of jail and prison.
And this is because unlike civil violations, one who commits a crime shall expect to pay a heavy price.
Michael, under your system poor people would not be fined but effectively given a sort of tax refund, a subsidy if you will that is so popular in today's tax codes.
The main difference between the Times and most prosecutors is that Times reporters believe most of what criminals tell them. I suspect that most of those arrested for marijuana use are frequent users and that they pay a couple hundred dollars for weed every month. At the same time, they claim they can’t raise $250 payable over six months to pay off their criminal fine. As a prosecutor, I can’t bring myself to believe that story. And, frankly, I wonder whether reporters have any common sense.
11
Michjas,
Reporters don't "just believe what criminals tell them." They research their articles, which have to be vetted before they are printed.
The evidence that many prosecutors abuse their authority is vast. Could you be one of them?
Its true, people that are rich and huge corporations look at insignificant fines as the cost of doing business or the cost of doing what they want. Day fines would make it much more fair. Squeezing those with traffic fines and small offenses is not the way to support the city. Raise taxes. Everyone benefits from the legal system and the roads and city services. Why are the law breakers paying for everyone? I am surprised that no one is saying legalize marijuana! Make it legal, tax it, and let people have a small amount of personal freedom.
1
A DUI in Florida means fine,loss of license ,legal fees.Fee for reinstatement of license huge increase in insurance payments.Low income kids can't afford it.A few days in jail would be better.The justice system should not be financed by fines.You live paycheck to paycheck now you can't work loose you car, job it seems excessive.The punishment should fit the crime.How about 40 hours of public service and a breathalyzer
before you can start the car
2
The problem with shrugging off aDUI offense is that people get killed. Distracts driving should have penalties similar to DUI because I get run off the road or have to take emergency measures on a daily basis because someone is trying to kill me with their car. If one cannot drive safely they do not need to drive at all.
with all due respect for those who find themselves in the grasp lady justice, and genuine regard for professor harris's good intentions...
"These people are paying for the system of justice from which we all benefit, but they cannot afford to do so."
well then, they might exempt themselves from the burden by refraining from criminal behavior, call it doing their civic duty, (here, professor harris and colleagues might offer preemptive programs, open to anyone requiring assistance in framing those responsibilities).
meanwhile, tax payers, alas, cannot exempt themselves from their obligations to pay their (far larger) share of the bill for law enforcement and the courts, perhaps they could drop by to observe and chat over refreshments.
"Of course, poor defendants who are convicted of crimes should be punished," but not fined or incarcerated.
maybe we should just forget the whole thing, do away with the entire costly system, and, instead, prevail on professor harris and colleagues, to deal, also, with those actually arrested, to decide what it means to "hold them accountable"...install the accused in dormitories, and let the wheels of justice roll, could be that a few free sociology classes might help or, if not free, at least base tuition "on a person’s daily wage and the seriousness of the offense."
herewith the promise of a paid subscription to the transcripts of these proceedings.
3
"Jurisdictions could reduce justice-related budgets by restructuring drug-sentencing laws to match public opinion..."
Wow... justice by public opinion now? Are we to have a phone-in vote on every sentence or piece of legislation?
Law must surely be kept separate from public opinion, which is capricious and malleable to misinformation. I'm sure, if polled, a majority of us would think a little speeding now and then is no big deal, or half a glass of wine over the limit doesn't affect us. The hard cold data on road fatalities speaks differently. This is but one example of how popular opinion should never be the basis of law!
6
Lax,
The quote you cite refers to the penalties for drug violations.
It doesn't refer to law breaking in general or to the people making law by consensus.
Public opinion leans towards less draconian penalties for drug violations, and to legalization of marijuana.
People do have a right to have a say in how justice is administered.
CLEARLY FINES In the legal system are often a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. They may also represent cruel and unusual punishment. From the descriptions in this article, it looks like government fees a pushing those involved with the legal system in the direction of being easy prey for loan sharks and other predatory money lenders with highly exploitive loan interest rates. Many of the fees mentioned are tantamount to placing people with little money in a debtor's prison where they can't escape monitoring of their compliance with fee payments.
2
I don't know what it's like in other areas of the country, but where I live a person can only be incarcerated for failure to pay fines and fees is if the court finds that the person ha the ability to pay, and willfully chose not to make those payments. I don't have a problem with that. I believe in alternative programs but they cost money and the money has to come from somewhere. A person convicted of a felony in Washington state has to pay a minimum of $800 in court costs, so $75.00 for classes or $250 for a monitoring fee is less money. In my jurisdiction it costs $145 a day to incarcerate someone. It's almost $400 a day for inpatient drug/alcohol treatment. Is there any wonder why taxpayers prefer jail to treatment?
3
Mary,
My brother was jailed for non-payment of traffic fines. He had almost no money. He would have been held indefinitely had I not paid them.
Whether you believe it or not, that version of debtors' prison exists in the US.
2
Give me a break. How about giving the lawbreaker the option to work for the state for a couple of days instead of paying the fine if it is unaffordable? Go a step further and make this the fine instead of paying cash? This would penalize the wealthy disproportionately because their time is "worth more". Everybody should pay the fine in some form.
4
Making fines fit the crime and the circumstance is a possibility, but so is community service. People can serve time for the community benefit.
But the concept of scaling the fine to the ability to pay - are we really planning to forego the $250 for a poor person, and charge the middle class family? Or charge the kid who can lawyer up four times the average fine, because he can afford it? Riiiiight,
Fines should be reasonable. Fines should be interest free. They should be payable over time. They should be able to be taken directly from wages on a slow schedule. And there should be an alternative.
And we should consider just paying our taxes so we can pay the court costs. Perhaps a place to start is to not penalize communities who do manage to tax to pay for criminal justice by double taxing them.
1
Cathy,
You miss the point.
The purpose of a fine is not to finance the criminal justice system, but to discourage breaking the law.
The penalty is supposed to do that, not completely immiserate the offender.
What would be a deterrent to a poor person is far less than what would be a deterrent to a person of means. The former should pay less, the latter pay more.
Finland does fines the right way, in my opinion, by basing them on what people earn per hour. So fines are set at various hours or days etc. The amount one pays depends on what one's annual income works out per hour. Of course, Finland is a far more egalitarian country so there are far fewer poor.
1
"...unjust, unfair and unrealistic systems of justice." We definitely have a capitalistic system of 'justice': "Justice' for those who can pay. But please don't push it. We really can't afford justice 'reform' under the current administration...
When the "Justice system" becomes a perverse way of funding the courts, we know we have gone the wrong way. When even so called progressives are alright with such a system, you know you need either new progressive candidate or a better definition of progressive!
We all know that failure to pay these fines and fees often paid to for profit companies) lands the defendant in nothing more or less than debtor's prison.
We need to reasses our view of core government functions and how they are funded.
3
Good point. The substitute for incarceration of poor people shouldn't be forcing those people to pay out money they either don't have (which means they will face incarceration) or can't afford, which means it will increase their anxieties & the likelihood of committing further crimes. It makes no sense at all.
1
Fines seem to be preferable to incarceration. Fines should be meted out on a sliding scale according to a defendant's ability to pay. A $50 fine can be as onerous to an impoverished individual and a $250 fine is to a more well off individual.
Those who are truly impoverished and subject to punishment due to law breaking could be sentenced to a combination of fine and community service.
2
Aww, pity the poor defendant who's convicted and has to pay up for a misdemeanor. This piece is seriously, indeed one might say, fatelly flawed: what about the massive administrative costs that in every case far exceed the slap-on-the-wrist fine? I administer fines in my Federal law enforcement job as part of my many duties and have no problem whatsoever making a violator of the law pay for their crime, whether civil or criminal law has resulted in such an adjudication. Indeed the purpose of levying such fines on the part of the prosecuting entity is as a deterrent.
4
A fine that would cripple a poor person is not a deterrent to one who can afford to pay it.
Maybe you should get out from behind your collection desk and look at how fines punish people disproportionate to their income.
The one point I take issue with the author is the assumption "that poor people who are convicted of crimes need to be punished". This belief of the need to inflict some form of suffering or punishment remains a cornerstone of western systems where an eye for an eye still rules. This is not to suggest that consequences are not warranted. Here's a novel idea: how about holding accountable rather than to our impotent systems, instead to those who are directly impacted by the offense. The administration of justice process now is largely about the lawyers and others who work in the system and only secondarily do victims, communities and offenders play any substantive role. They are passive actors on the stage of justice. Most of us forget the way you dealt with violations and crime before we had "modern" common law, courts, judges, lawyers, and bureaucrats. We had forms of "community justice" and people had to work things out between each other. You take my sheep and you and I have to decide how you will compensate me for my loss or you work it off shoeing my horses. With the codification of laws and the establishment of the King's Court when you took my sheep you no longer compensated me. You gave the compensation to the King instead. These mechanisms became known as the fines and penalties we have today.
43
That's not correct.
Criminal law is to deal with crimes against the state (i.e., public order).
Civil law is to deal with torts and breaches of contract (i.e., victim recompense).
In your example, the sheep-owner is the victim of a tort; conversion. Want to be compensated? Sue.
The prosecutor is the state's lawyer, holding someone to account for their breach of peace.
1
And, how about we legalize ALL drugs - since NOBODY is harmed by the personal decision of another to use? But understand, I'm also advocating absolutely ZERO taxpayer funded treatment plans either. You use, hey more power to you, but YOU pay for the consequences of your decision.
3
I agree, yet there are two rather large issues. One, is that most people would likely argue against whatever "judgment" the victim asked for. Two, the victim would obviously have to be limited in respect to what he/she can ask for. And thirdly (so I can't count), these days one is hard pressed to enforce "work" of any type upon anyone because it might somehow compromise his/her "rights".
So to put it all another way, today most people consider being responsible for one's actions and acceptance of the consequences of their actions as "punishment".
And you forget too, that not too long ago, community justice also included things like hangings and shooting the person who was trying to take your sheep.
1
This is why we need good judges with the flexibility to act.
The justice system is complex and varied in cause.
People shouldn't be nickel and dimed into poverty- but for those who continually cross the line in egregious public offense there should be no mitigation for indigence. This quip "crime doesn't pay" is apt, people need to operate within the law.
6
I was one of those and was removed for caring about the poor and helpless who were being jailed for no reason and harassed because of the color of their skin or how they talked.
2
I agree. I'm a police officer, and I often hear that I'm ruining peoples lives, or they can't afford the fine for whatever crime is being alleged. Drug laws in my state are well known, and there are very few exceptions for legal use. Pretty much prescription drugs only (that's a whole other dilemma). I wish they would legalize weed, and regulate it like alcohol, but that's not going to happen here anytime soon.
Marijuana isn't cheap. Meth, Cocaine, and Heroine (or her more expensive prescription sisters) are even more expensive than weed. How do these poor people, who live on public assistance, afford the drugs, but they can't afford a $250 fine when they get caught?
3
Chris,
Marijuana is cheap, as compared to other drugs. And one needn't be a frequent user to fall afoul of the law, including in your state.
If you really believe, as you claim, that pot should be legalized, you could use your status as a cop to let people off with a warning rather than arresting them.
It would be interesting to see data that sets out just what percentage of these fines, fees, etc people who are indigent ever actually pay. My guess is that as much as 80% of the total are simply never collected. Essayist produces a solution where there is in fact no problem.
18
And when they can't pay there get a summons for non payment and the fine increases or they get put in jail for violation of court order. You miss ths point trying to get blood out of a stone is not the way to deal with this issue.
2
People who don't pay are subject to bench warrants, and any interaction with police can land them in jail. They live in fear - another form of prison.
2
Also if there are outstanding fines one can get driver licenses suspended and other professional licenses suspended affecting the ability to work and earn money .
2
The truth is that we’re arrived at a crisis. Taxes no longer cover the cost of basic services, and residents, unless they’re Californians, refuse to accept yet higher taxes. Our states are strangling with outright debt and unfunded liabilities such as public sector retirement commitments. Illinois as a state and Chicago as a city are not bankrupt only because their governments say they’re not, and New Jersey is a half-step behind them. Other states are in similar straits. If the judicial system isn’t adequately funded to function on taxes, how else is it to function but to levy fines?
The same can be said of schools, the police, and infrastructure maintenance. They’re ALL under-funded relative to their needs. State and local taxes, already at an all-time high in our states, can’t be raised in normal times, forget about a new federal framework that does away with their deductibility.
States and local venues finally need to come to an understanding that the well isn’t bottomless, that Medicaid is strangling us and robs from ALL other priorities, and that the fees and fines that government entities DO impose in a desperate attempt to keep above-water are merely the signs of an impending doom when they will be forced to dramatically reduce expenditures in fire-sale mode and not intelligently.
Yes, a $250 fine shouldn’t be the price of justice. The price of justice is a state that is prudent in ALL that it spends, so that it can AFFORD a fine-free justice.
15
If taxes are not enough to pay for what we want from our society, then we need higher taxes. We should pay enough in taxes to take care of our needs.
55
catlover:
You refuse completely to address the issue, and the problem. Whether they're Democrats or Republicans, voters almost unfailingly are refusing to tolerate higher state and local taxes. Even California liberals will be thinking twice about voting for them now that they're no longer deductible, unless you're in the higher brackets where the AMT has taken deductibility away from you for years now, anyway.
Rock-and-a-hard-place time. Fees and fines are merely the latest stop-gap, and at $250 they're already at their limit for most people and can't go higher. The only answer for states and localities is to spend dramatically less.
12
Good points. But consider the justice that went missing in action and the billions of dollars it cost just one state--New Jersey--courtesy of Gov. Christie who:
1) Settled the $8.9 billion Exxon fine owed New Jersey for its criminal pollution for peanuts on the dollar: $225 million.
https://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chris-christies-225m-settlement-exxon-a...
2) Reduced Trump's New Jersey casino $30 million tax bill to .17 cents on the dollar.
https://nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/politics/trump-chris-christie-casinos....
3) Allowed Christoper Wray's firm King & Spalding to stay on taxpayer dole after getting Christie off from having to testify in public Bridgegate
https://usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/19/fbi-diretcor-nominee...
36
In the area of public intoxication or driving under the influence, a short and meaningful few days in public housing (aka, jail) can do a world of good. The risk of future damage to life and property should be compared with the punishment. Many individuals who have experienced even a short-term loss of liberty have seen the light and turned the corner to a safer and better way of life. Diversion is fine, but a short-term sentence can make a serious difference.
38
One problem is that most people would loose their jobs while in jail. Then, once out, they have a record and are no longer seen as employable. Now you have a person or family with no support, and their record may prevent them from receiving public assistance, including some forms of alcoholism support . How are they going to support themselves and their families short of resorting to additional crime? You have only compounded the problems. Often, these people end up on the streets, homeless, which further exacerbates the problems in their lives.
2
A few days in jail, for someone who is low income, barely making it, means losing one or more of the multiple jobs they are working, setting them back so far they may not be able to recover. Looking for the right options to productively penalize while not disproportionately destroying the lives of the poor is a difficult thing.
2
Time to get those self-driving cars on the road already.. esp in places w/o public transit.. (Should halve the price of say a taxi cab.. or even more.) Human beings just cost too much..
BTW who do you think is paying for the short term sentence or do you own prison stock... ???
Incarcertaion makes no difference.. A sick 62 yr. woman -- COPD, an alcoholic (possibly abstinent at the moment), deaf, bad back- , manic-depressive- MANDATORY three months in jail for third offense DUI?? Does this make sense?
We are a savage nation. This is just one aspect of our savagery.
56
A $250 fine is not savagery. It's a little on the high side of a speeding ticket.
3
Will,
It's obvious you are not poor.
1
what is? if You mean the lawbreakers, I sgree6
I have a big problem with prorating fines based on ability to pay. Interest free payment plans, fine. A stronger punishment for a a higher income defendant than for a low-income one, no. Our goal should be equal justice under law.
17
Interesting viewpoint, but a flawed analogy. It isnt fair to expect someone who makes less then poverty level to pay as much as a wealthy person. And additionally, it isn't just. The purpose of the fine is to cause pain, to prevent recurrences, so it should be expected that someone with a large income should pay more for their mistakes.
61
It is about keeping the punishment the same for everyone. The fine should sting for the rich as for the middle class and the poor.
How much of a deterrent is a $250 fine for someone with a $20m income? At the same time the fee is completely out of reach for someone on social security. Day fines is a great idea and commonly used in the nordic countries like Sweden and Finland.
The effect can be drastic, to keep the same deterrent effect a fine deemed to cost say 5 says wages could vary between $50 for someone unemployed, and $300 000 for a master of the universe.
24
It isn't equal if one defendant can painlessly pay a fine and another is driven into bankruptcy. Prorating fines would make breaking the law equally painful for all and not just for the poor.
7
It costs a lot more than $250 per day to incarcerate someone. I’d rather have individuals pay hefty fines rather than society bear the burden of their crimes. Some fines have to be high otherwise they are not a deterrent.
14
"It costs a lot more than $250 per day..."
Humm, I'd like to see your data.
1
What fine would you suggest for a billionaire offender?
But some people don't have $250. They literally cannot pay that. Should they go to jail, lose their home, go hungry, and/or lose their job because they don't have any money? $250 is very minor for me, but I know many people whose lives would be upended for months by an unexpected $250 bill on top of everything else. That's why prorated fines make sense- we want our fines to sting, but not to make people destitute, and the amount that fits that category varies based on your income.
2
Sorry, but this type of thinking is why Republicans and moderate Democrats win more elections than liberal Democrats. Most people are going to read this as an argument for zero punishment. Which is what it is. I really believe that if the NYT and other liberals would just quieten down and stop printing these types of columns and editorials, then moderate Democrats could win more elections.
53
The system NOW is for zero punishment for the rich.
2
Gordon,
No, it's not.
The article doesn't argue for no penalties, just more fair ones.
Republicans don't win elections based on telling the truth about the judicial system, but on fear-mongering and lying.
2
Gee you give the Times a lot of credit. You do know it was the electoral college that brought us Trump and Reagan and the Bushies and Clinton and and and... People running on the Repub ticket win... and most people in the USA prob could not name their senators, their representative or the speaker of the house/ speaker of the senate and would get the name of the VP wrong.
The Times headline writers and some of the journalists do seem to want to compete with the tabloids... however... most people do not read newspapers nor do they listen to the news... except perhaps in the car but maybe no -- an all rock station not NPR (which does go on and on). I drive I know what I do.
Well said. It is O.K. to take to justice anybody accused of graft, even with loss of their freedom if the crime warrants it. But double-dipping on the poor is a flagrant injustice...unless we are facing with a new 'a la Trump' system, the Department of Injustice.
7
I’ve worked with the criminal justice system for a number of years now and in light of that experience, I’ll put it this way: If justice didn’t come with a $250 fine, at least where I live and work, our courthouses would have to close. Poorer states like mine simply can’t afford not to fine the criminally accused. Is it ideal? Of course not. Locking people into an endless cycle of poverty is just begging for recidivism. On the flip side, I have seen firsthand the positive change that can take place with specialty courts and/or probation, both of which require funding from somewhere.
It’s great to dream about a purely rehabilitative system in which fines and costs are tailored to income or removed all together. I personally believe that in a perfect world where money isn’t an issue, defendants should pay court costs and fines based on a percentage of their income rather than a set fee. Practically though, at least where I live, rehabilitating criminals (and criminal justice period) costs a lot of money that my state doesn’t have. Out of the limited options available, if I had to choose between cutting court costs for people who choose to break the law (and by extension slashing our already pitiful state courts budget even further), and an imperfect system in which criminals and the criminally accused foot the bill for their own actions, you’ll forgive me for choosing the latter, at least for now.
16
One serious problem with this approach is that it puts pressure on law enforcement to make arrests--and that opens the door to abuse. It is analogous to quotas for speeding tickets, except that arrests for low-level crime don't have radar to establish provable offenses. Officers who have preconceptions about people of races other than their own--even without their knowing it--may fall into the trap of racial profiling. Men who are looking for free sex can blackmail women whom they threaten with arrest for non-compliance with their desires. Both of these kinds of abuse have been documented in the pages of the NYTimes over, say, the past two or three years.
1
Terminology has political implications. Court costs should reflect the costs of running the court and in a system striving for equality would be the same for each defendant. Fines based on ability to pay are a different topic. If the justice system is seen as trying to obscure costs, a jail book fee(?), I am unlikely to vote for hidden costs.
1
Just,
You're arguing for perpetrating what I regard as injustice in the administration of justice because of the monetary cost of that injustice.
That, by definition, is not justice and deserves to fail.
If we went to the Scandinavian system of basing fines on income, not only would we have a more just system that would mete out appropriate punishments -- I mean, what Tiger Woods actually punished when he had to pay $250 for reckless driving? -- but we would also find police who are looking for fines for income incentivized to go after the rich, not the poor, because of the bigger paydays. Now, that would be an interesting change in our justice system.
71
I generally agree with the study author's analysis, but in the Woods case, he was "fined" much more in the court of public opinion. The judge can fairly take that into account in sentencing. Around here, though, in Macon, three hots and a cot in a relatively safe space isn't considered such a burden to many, unfortunately, because their alternative conditions may be pretty tough, uncertain, uncomfortable and dangerous. Macon had 30 murders in 2017, highest in decades.
2
The would only exacerbate predatory policing. as it is, we have intermingled fines and taxes too much. Many towns build speeding tickets into their budgets--a fine used as a tax. And cigarette taxes are meant to punish smokers--a tax used as a fine. We don't need more of this.
2
Reminds me of O'Henry.
Couldn't agree more. Tremendously alienating when you suspect there might be a financial motive behind your arrest and prosecution. You should always have the option of paying your debt for minor crimes a weekend in jail or community service.
Where was Obama on this? Never heard a peep. A lot of Republicans would have gone along. Another lost opportunity if only to make an issue of it.
4
Are people who have done absolutely nothing wrong being pulled in off the streets and made to pay fines? No. No one suggests that. If you are arrested and prosecuted in this country, it is because you engaged in criminal activity that attracted the attention of the police, who responded accordingly. The solution? don't do it. Don't engage in criminal activity. Then you eliminate the risk of being arrested and prosecuted. Problem solved.
3
This issue lies almost entirely at the state justice level, where Obama could do little to nothing.
And considering the Republican leadership consistantly promised to block anything Obama touched, your statement of cooperation is quite disengenuous.
3
Cornflower,
The problem exists. It's more complicated than the simplistic cliché "If you can't do the time ..."
Making people poorer leads to more crime, an endless vicious cycle.
Saying "problem solved" is willful blindness.
1
I have to confess that I did not know one had to pay for being put in jail. This is like something out of Dickens’ novel! On the other hand, I don’t like the sound of ‘restorative justice’: it means denying people’s agency and responsibility just because they happen to be poor. Poverty is no excuse for crime. But many of the infractions described in the article are hardly serious enough to even be in the justice system to begin with. Many countries have traffic courts to deal specifically with traffic violations and the penalties they prescribe are mostly suspension of the driver’s license for a specific period. Of course, in those countries you can get around pretty well using public transportation, so people who have no money to maintain their vehicles don’t need to have them.
17
That's not what restorative justice is. Restorative justice is about repairing harm to victims and restoring communities those impacted by crime. In RJ when you hold someone accountable, it's for the harm and impact of their actions which in fact results in MORE agency not less. In truth. these types of low-level offenses should not even be in the courts in the first place. They should be handled by communities and neighborhoods and NOT by still more lawyers and bureaucrats. They have plenty of jobs already. There are states where a majority of low-level offenses are handled this way. Will we ever get beyond our outdated, primitive (and ineffective) ideas about justice and whether to excuse, rehabilitate or punish offenders? PLEASE.
3
$250 is, unfortunately a sum of money that a very large percentage of US citizens couldn’t come up with for - any - kind of emergency. Health, transport, court fines, and so forth.
Perhaps one of the readers knows the percentage of the American population with this risk exposure - 35%??
Can this financial profile, and risk profile of our citizens - support our democracy?
The article raises so many troubling dimensions of the financial fragility of the poor.
41
Hmm
Money For streaming Services? Yes
Money For IPhone? Yes
Money For New Sneakers? Yes
Money for Illegal Drugs? Yes
Money For Fine for convictions? No
Simply take away all consequences for ones activities and call it a day enough of this Chinese water torture on the road to simply breakdown of society
43
This is an unfair characterization of how poor people spend their money. Those I knew, as a caseworker, did not have streaming services, iPhones, new sneakers, or drugs. They had one pair of shoes (sneakers, usually), no cable TV or equivalent, no computer (alas!), but usually a car, not living in big cities. The same was true of me, when I was impoverished. Raymond L. needs to get out and talk to people, instead of basing his views on false stereotypes.
5
Money for illegally obtained opiates? Just lock those criminals up fine them, right? Why should my tax dollars go to supporting criminals?
Excellent article! Here in San Jose Calif this problem extends even to the traffic court system. A fine for an illegal right turn, for example failing to merge into the cycling lane properly prior to the turn, will result in a fine in the $400 - $500 range, after the various court fees tacked on to the basic infraction fine of $75 are cyphered. Not only the poor, but most middle class families here find a $500 fine for a minor traffic infraction unaffordable and truly unfair. Of course there are always consequences when the laws are unfair. In this case one consequence is that the court schedule is loaded up with cases involving these minor citations. If the family can't afford the $500 fine what else can they do but plead not guilty and ask for a trial? They hope that the police officer fails to show up and they'll win by default.
23
Many countries use a day-fine system to make fines fair. Your fine is so many days of income. See, for example
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the...
15
but the harm of a crime is not proportional to the wealth of the perpetrator. An indigent person driving recklessly on the highway is as likely to wreck another person's car, as a rich person. The fine needs to reflect that.
1
Amanda,
Criminal law almost never involves restitution to the victim. It's supposedly designed to be a deterrent.
A $250 fine for a poor person may do more than deter: it can impoverish, leading to more crime.
Whereas $250 to a well-off person is no deterrent at all.
Besides, drug laws punish victimless crimes, so there's no issue of restitution anyway.
2
Of course, poor defendants who are convicted of crimes should be punished. But let’s hold them accountable without building huge debts they cannot pay.
------------------------------------
I strongly disagree with your "of course" conclusion. I'm an attorney. You are a sociologist. The idea of justice is not to "punish" but to effectively change people's behaviors so that they stop victimizing others in society. Whether by failing to insure their vehicles and causing others to pay for the damages they cause, or by failing to pay money to support their children and expecting other families to pay more in taxes to support their brood.
How do we get people to effectively act responsibly in society? That is what we try to rectify in the justice system. Punishment is not the goal, honestly. Sometimes, you impose a time-out -- by jailing and removing from society habitual offenders. Other people learn to change their behaviors when it costs them -- they have to pay to rectify their errors and omissions before they see the need for personal change (and growth, as being responsible for their own actions often benefits them in the long run.)
I respect your discipline in observing and studying people in society, but take it easy with the "of course" legal conclusions, ok? Or else study more the goals of the justice system before you tell us how to fix those we are failing. T/y.
84
I take issue with any consequences of behavior. People are not free and rational actors. People are automatons crush and pulverized by your corrupt, unjust society.
3
One part of the "fines" that the writer discusses is the application fee for applying to be represented by a public defender. Another part is shifting the cost of confinement to the accused. We criminalize every misbehavior imaginable. When the cost of holding jury trials and appointing public defenders to represent the accused becomes a factor, prosecutors reduce the offense to a misdemeanor to avoid those costs. When the accused is convicted without representation and sentenced to 10 months in jail the costs of confinement (say $100 to $250 per day} are imposed on the defendant. That is a strange sort of justice.
8
Attorneys do not want justice. They want billable hours. As a rule, attorneys are against anything, no matter what, that reduces billable hours. Better for society, worse for society ... not important. Fights, court appearances, hearings, Indictments, Responses, Billing!! Billing!
The goals of the justice system are not universal and seem to be failing Midway.
That ought to count for something.
3
If they have money for drugs, then they have money for a fine. Actions have consequences. No sympathy here.
What IS unfair, was the IRS fining people who couldn't afford The Affordable Care Act forced health insurance that was so expensive they either couldn't buy it or use it. Thank you President Trump and Congress for overturning THAT idiotic and unfair fine. Where is Ms. Harris' sympathy for THOSE people?
39
Your empathy is heartwarming.
I have no sympathy for people who willfully choose not to buy health insurance and then stick taxpayers and insureds like me with their ER bills when the inevitable happens. They have money for guns, beer, and tithing; They can pay for their own healthcare.
78
So you won't have any sympathy for someone who refuses to buy health insurance and then requires medical care either then? We live in a complicated world and whether you like it or not there are no simple answers.
8
Actions have consequences.
8
Justice may be blind, but coins always tip the scales of justice
9
Professor Harris is 100% correct. But let’s go further.
1. No municipal/small court criminal judges without law degrees, as small town judges throughout the South are notoriously known for political appointees. However quaint, laymen do not have a bar ethics committee watching over their license.
2. No funding city government courts or agencies with fine proceeds. All fine monies go to a state fund and are apportioned based on population. That takes away the incentive for municipal courts to levy fines to meet the city council’s budget expectations.
3. No police officers in chambers or in the back office—only prosecutors and licensed defense lawyers. Stop the ex parte “side bars” that prejudice criminal defendants before the case even starts.
4. Presumptive personal recognizance bonds until a defendant misses a hearing. Take the for profit bail bondsmen out of the equation.
5. Don’t penalize a defendant for requesting a jury trial and refusing to plead guilty and accept a plea “bargain,” which is an oxymoron.
122
Co-signed. Eminently sensible.
2
Although I would not say that the professor is 100 percent correct (judges must retain discretion to effect public ends and justice in the broader sense), this Conservative Democrat commenter IS 100 percent correct. Bravo from a law prof who has looked at these questions in situ here in the Deep South.
3
A family member was wrongly accused of shoplifting. There was video. It clearly showed no shoplifting. She won.
Then she got the bill from the court for the assigned public defender -- four times more than the fine would have been, over a thousand dollars.
The fine print in Michigan says that the public defender "provided" as required by the US Supreme Court "if you can't afford one" will bill you after the case, even if you win, and that becomes a court judgment against you.
You can be jailed for non-payment of the defense attorney bill for a case you won, or so the judge threatened her.
157
Usually I advise my clients who have strong evidence rebutting probable cause to file suit against law enforcement. These cases are not easily won even if innocent but the more that are brought the less corners are cut later.
13
Our Kafkaesque "justice" system.
15
This is a tangential topic. The court system is full of what can be deemed injustice but this article regards people who have actually been proven guilty, have been fined and then rearrested. In the woman's case above she should be immune to consequential penalty for sure but for those who are compiling more offenses- second and third violations need to have greater weight in penalty.
1
sigh - this why average Americans think that liberals have no anchor in the sea of common sense and rationality.
Quit committing crimes and the whole egregious $250 fine thingy will go away.
98
We're talking about marijuana possession, something your state no longer considers a crime. that's the trouble with you blockhead conservatives. No liberal thinks armed robbery, rape or murder should go unpunished with incarceration.
13
As a former magistrate, (traffic judge,) I can tell you there is no answer, so long as the traffic courts are called upon to finance the entire judicial system and much or even some of local government. Even if this system is changed there are only less bad answers, but under any system there are no good answers.
9
No so fast! Read the comment from Mark Thomason above. A not guilty finding followed by an order to pay for the PD. So no, the whole "thingy" doesn't go away. So really, I guess what you meant to say was; Don't be accused of anything.
43
Dr. Harris’ study on the effects of fines and fees imposed on persons who cannot pay them rings true. When poor people are set up to fail, the likelihood they will successfully reintegrate into society is low. Mandatory fines and fees result in greater societal costs, including increased incarceration and greater dependency on social services. When fines and fees are only imposed on persons who can afford to pay them, they can be an effective way to reduce crime. Fines and fees should only, however, be imposed after a judge has made a true and meaningful inquiry into the persons ability to pay. Without this inquiry, we ensure that persons who have been convicted of crimes, no matter how serious, can never escape their past misdeeds and move forward with their lives.
20
Capitalism, even in an indirect form as in the abuses of some local justice systems, is amoral except in rare cases when practiced by moral individuals. As soon as it becomes impersonal, morals become secondary. A shame to see this in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced countries. With increasing age, my country has made me cringe more often than feel pride. Perhaps that is simply the blinders coming off slowly rather than a trend towards a darker version of what so many of us hope we can become one bright day.
7
Try the alternative: socialism. Venezuela? Cambodia? USSR? The point of a civilized society is not to require impossible moral perfection from its members but to create a set of rules that enables naturally selfish and individualistic people to live together.
10
Mor: That is truly a straw man argument; you respond as if I made the argument of preferring failed or poor forms of government versus the predominant type of economy in the US. Can you not accept criticism of certain aspects of our type of economy without inflating that into "Well, try living in Russia?" The article is specifically about the levying of what are quite often unreasonable fines on POOR people with the express purpose of paying for various things in the local justice system. That is a form of capitalism that preys on the poor. You completely ignore the alternative costs imposed on the system for incarceration, which I am sure could easily be higher than fines, but the point is that preying on the poor who often either have great difficulty paying or cannot and receive additional penalties. As the article notes, there are alternative forms of penalties that might be better for the offender and for the community. The system described is simply a business, with the poor as "customers". How is that just or rehabilitative?
2
Along with civil forfeiture laws, the many ways in which judicial systems try to squeeze money out of defendants is a scandal nobody seems to care about.
Only in a Kafka novel would defendants have to pay a fee to hire a public defender, pay for a jury, or to be booked in jail.
74
This is shameful. These fines mean nothing to the well off, or even much of the middle class. For the poor, this could mean becoming homeless, losing a job, and severe problems for the entire family. Justice??? No. A giant step on the road to privatization of the entire Justice System.
Try harder.
42
Compounding this life of horrors is the current wave of this administration's federal judge nominations and the GOP confirmations of hard-right winged judges who wrap the robe of justice tightly around themselves while dishing out fire and brimstone law and order.
These lifetime appointments of hard-right fundamentalists will make Scalia look like a school boy. They are all-in when it comes to making the criminal pay for their transgressions - whether they can afford it or not.
Let us not expect a softer, gentler court system across the next 40 or more years; the harshest of legal roads is yet ahead of us.
20
I think the point of the article was that even seemingly progressive ideas of justice that get rid of lengthy jail sentences can still be overly punitive for the poor. An unpayable fee can be just as crippling as being locked up for ones future prospects. Left or Right partisanship really doesn’t serve anyone who’s caught up in the gears of justice
28
@Watcher, I do not disagree with you.
For me, the forward looking statement "While it’s understandable that the election of prosecutors like these who are committed to finding options other than locking people up — a key part of criminal justice reform — has inspired excitement, real change to the system will require that they go a step further to ensure that alternative punishments aren’t an unreasonable financial burden." is reaching for a lost cause.
The ability of a "system" to evolve toward something more fair is being pushed out of reach when the higher courts are going to be so far right, it will take two or more generations to have the opportunity to nominate new judges who would be remotely interested in such ideals.
7
When my teenage son was found guilty of speeding and a fine was set, the judge asked him if he had a job. My son said yes, part-time. The judge asked him if he could pay $10.00/week? This was in 1985. My son went to the city hall every week until the fine was paid.
We thanked the NY State Trooper who had stopped our son for saving his life. Our family now has our son, his wife, and 2 sons.
88