“As budgets have grown tighter, jurisdictions and politicians have balked at tax increases,”[said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice]. “So the burden of revenue for this vastly expanding criminal justice system has been shifted to those who find themselves defendants in courts or inmates in prisons.”...
One of the plaintiffs is a man kept in jail for weeks for unpaid debts despite his protests that he had a job waiting that would have allowed him to earn the money. Another man spent six days in jail on a warrant issued in error, while a third was told by a collections officer to pay double every time he was late with a payment.
“It’s a failing system, and they know it’s a failing system,” said the third man, Reynaud Variste, 26, who was arrested in a police raid at his home one morning this year after he had fallen a few weeks behind in payments connected to a two-year-old illegal possession case.
September 18, 2015
"[A] class-action lawsuit against the criminal district court [in New Orleans], alleging that judges and court officials have been running an 'illegal scheme' in which poor people are indefinitely jailed if they fall behind on payments of court fines, fees and assessments..."
"The suit describes how fees are imposed with no hearing about a person’s ability to pay, and how nearly all components of the local criminal justice system — the judges, the prosecutors, the public defenders — benefit financially to some degree...."
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43 comments:
New Orleans? Corruption?
We're supposed to be surprised?
This is something I would love the DOJ to focus on. This and the way police departments are using picky laws with large fines to make money on us.
We have become revenue sources, rather than citizens, to those who work for the government.
Lord, people, obey the law, pay your bills and be nice to the police. Stop blaming other people for your life choices. It used to be called "adulthood".
I can certainly believe that corruption like this is taking place, probably in many places. On the other hand just because something is alleged in a lawsuit does not mean that it happened, and anything appearing in the NY Times is more likely than not to be wildly slanted.
So I'll wait and see.
... while a third was told by a collections officer to pay double every time he was late with a payment.
Was he told to pay double because they were tacking on a 100% late fee, or was he told to pay double because he missed his August payment, it's now mid-September, and so he now owes both August and September?
@Basil
I wish it were that simple. The fact is in many poor cities, often suburbs of large metro areas such as Ferguson Mo, A large portion of the city budget for police and fire come from fines and fees. The police are not just catching the occasional lawbreaker: they are purposefully sent out to poor neighborhoods looking for any type of violation that can be turned into cash. In many instances these fines can be for bullsh*t violations like not having your garbage can X feet from the curb. Working poor simply don't have the extra cash to pay. Once ensnared in the system a $25 fine triples or more when you don't pay on time, then they come arrest you and you lose what job you have and REALLY can't pay and on and on.
You never see this crap go on in wealthier areas. The city bosses know citizens will fight back and have the means to do so.
Preying on the poor is easier, and others (see your own comment) have no sympathy for them.
Some where under England, Charles Dickens is spinning in his grave.
Somewhere. I meant somewhere.
In my area there is a small town that has a police force with 6 patrol cars plus the chief's decked out Yukon. They do little but sit on the two highways that pass through their jurisdiction handing out traffic violations. The town is tiny, practically a wide spot at a crossroads. They have court twice a week, and each session there are 150 to 200 defendants (cough victims cough) that are "processed" to the tune of about $100 apiece.
We call them UTC Uniformed Tax collectors.
Frankly looking at them I don't think they could catch a thief if he was in a wheel chair with both legs off at the knees...
You never see this crap go on in wealthier areas. The city bosses know citizens will fight back and have the means to do so.
I don't agree. I lived in an upper middle class area, and the cops loved to patrol for rolling stops and going 5 miles over the speed limit. When I lived in Florida, they used to drive through my workplace parking lot, looking for out of state license plates and ticketing them for not being registered in Florida.
They get the revenue and there's no defending yourself, even if you are upper middle class. The good news is, the people are more able to pay the fines and don't get caught in these cycles.
I thought New Orleans was all better now.
A couple problems here. One is that debtor prisons are illegal here. But maybe more importantly, some of the BLM movement seems to be in resistance to this sort of thing. One of the t hints that the DoJ probe of Ferguson found was that the poor black community was, in essence, being exploited by the city through a system of fines for small transgressions, then multiplied by fines upon fines when they can't pay. When cities have lost their tax basis, or when govt employee salaries and esp benefits run away from their ability to pay, more and more cities seem to be filling their funding holes with this fine upon fine upon fine strategy. Never mind that the debt quickly overtakes the ability of many with the worst job skills to ever get ahead of the fines, and every time that the cities put workers in jail, it makes it that much harder for them to regain employment when they get out.
Let me note that the cities engaged in this most likely don't go out and intentionally try to beggar their citizenry with the most marginal job prospects. Rather, I expect that it is the result of a bureaucratic system that just cannot handle the reality that these people cannot afford to pay all the fines (and fines upon fines) that the cities are trying to use to plug their funding holes. Bureaucrats have always preferred the stick over the carrot - but in this case, the funds they need to pay for their own retirements are more important to them than the lives they destroy with the overzeleous application of the stick, which in this case involve additional fines for not being able to afford the previous fines.
@Maybee
You may be right, the UTC are equal opportunity enforcers that's true.
But I also expect that if you were late paying a fine they would treat you with respect and be very hesitant to come pick you up and take you to jail at your home or work. In the poor neighborhoods the gloves are off, and frankly they were never on to begin with.
Of course this never happens, but can you imagine a morning roll call at the police station...
"Boys, if you don't meet your quota of violation citations this month, we can't afford to fund your retirement accounts..."
I mean, I'm sure it never happens, doesn't it?
When I was caught speeding in Iowa, I noticed that the Court Costs were 4x the fine for speeding.
One of the reasons that this sort of thing has gotten so out of hand is that it involves an inter-party squabble. The victims of this system are typically low income, very often Minority, Dem voters, and the people pushing it are typically govt workers, who are also mostly Dems. The minority communities involved provide the needed votes for the Dems, while the govt employees, esp when unionized, provide more votes, but more importantly money and election workers. The press likely hide this for a number of reasons, including, prominently, that bringing it out would hurt the local Dem party and its politicians - it would tend to anger the first group, seeing how their misery is being orchestrated to financially benefit the latter group.
A large group of Americans keep saying that we need more government. Well, this is more government.
I just had to pay my first ticket ever, for speeding. In New York State, they don't tell you how much you have to pay, so if you plead guilty you pay the maximum. Everyone pleads not guilty, gets offered a lower level ticket, and pays the fine. However, the judge said if you can't pay I'll give you two months more. That night he gave a woman two more months to pay in addition to the two months she already had. At the same time, if they printed the fine on the ticket, more people would pay, and the judge and prosecutor wouldn't have enough to prove their jobs need to exist.
Basil - Gee you sound like former Mayor Bloomberg who said, "all you have to do is don't break the law and you don't have to pay fines." However, he put traffic ladies on corners (each side with the device that scans your registration!) to try to charge people with blocking the box on a green when traffic momentarily stops and then pedestrians BLOCK your way even though they are crossing against the light. So the ticket is $150, but then they have fees that don't need city council (or state) approval and suddenly it's $200 or $250.
They have "safety checks" where they pulled over random drivers (I was pulled over twice in a month!) to check their licenses and registration and insurance for violations. I/we had done nothing wrong. They were LOOKING for ways to fine us. They found nothing, but 10 minutes of my life were taken away and it caused a traffic jam behind the staging area.
Then there are the bus lane violations. A traffic cop, to clear the intersection put me in one. I got in and out as soon as possible, but the camera zapped my plate. Boom - ticket plus fees. The next time a cop said to do that, I said no, I get a ticket. He actually said, "not if I tell you to." I said it's a camera, you are going to take a day off work for me to fight it? You will remember this moment? He then proceeded to tell me I was crazy, "A veddy, veddy crazy vooman."
I am waiting to see if I got a red light camera as when I pulled out around someone the light turned yellow and it was screech to a halt/go split decision and the light was fast...we shall see.
Then there are the confusing parking signs although that has gotten better (they would put new signs over the old/out of date signs!), but I have had friends who got tickets while they walked mid block to the meter machine. So now I save all of my stubs as proof.
Long Island is just as bad.
This was the takeaway observation from the DoJ report on Ferguson, right? With declining revenues from businesses and residents, local officials determined to increase revenues through fines and civil penalties. Right?
Police in some cities resort to utterly false accusations, and I don't know whether they're freelancers trying to meet quotas, or whether it's city policy.
In May of last year, I got a notice from the city of Richmond, Virgina that my $40 ticket had turned into a $50 ticket because I hadn't paid it. I had never received any such ticket, and I couldn't have had one put on my windshield unless some Richmond cop drove a 200+ mile round trip to do it.
I had supposedly blocked an intersection on the 100 block of S. Henry Street with my '98 Accord at 0:40 in the morning on a certain date.
I had to drive to Richmond (100+ miles one-way) twice to fight the ticket: once to get a court date, again for the actual trial. I'm a teacher and it was summer by that time, so it didn't cost me any lost wages, but just the gas and parking cost me more than $50. I still did it because I'll be damned if I'll pay a totally fraudulent ticket.
I told the judge the truth, that that car (an old backup car) hadn't been within 100 miles of Richmond in years, and that I hadn't been in Richmond after dark in years, and she threw out the ticket. I was bold enough to interrupt her and say "Wait, you haven't heard the worst part. There is no such place as the 100 block of S. Henry Street in Richmond!" As I told her, anyone can look at Google Maps (or go to the area, as I did on the way to court) and see that N. Henry Street stops at Main Street, and therefore the intersection I supposedly blocked doesn't exist. It couldn't exist, because Main Street has a bend in it, and there's no room for Henry Street to continue south of Main. The judge looked surprised, and promised to look into it, but I never heard from her again.
I'm still pissed that she couldn't be bothered to investigate an obviously fraudulent ticket, that the cop who wrote it couldn't be bothered to show up in court so I could call him a damned liar to his face, and that I still can't figure out whether it's official Richmond police policy, or just some lazy crooked cop's policy, to write smallish tickets for people who live far away, knowing that 99% will pay them by mail, since it's a lot cheaper to do so, and only the occasional self-righteous bastard like me will show up to contest it, in which case they just throw it out and write another one for some other poor chump who will pay it by mail. There's at least one rotten cop in the Richmond police force, and it may go much further than one. The fact that you cannot set up a court date without driving to Richmond in person suggests that it's unofficial city policy to rob innocent people.
It couldn't have been an honest mistake - cop writing down the number wrong - because the original ticket, which I could see on-line, had no make or model of car listed, and I think no location or time: these were all added a few weeks later, after I'd driven to Richmond the first time to get a court date, and after (I imagine) the cop realized he was going to need to fill in the information that he should have written down 'on the scene' - if there had actually been a scene to write it down on.
By the way, my first reaction to the fraudulent ticket was "I'll never visit that damned city again! Or if I have to drive through, I won't spend any money there!", but then I realized that they didn't need me to visit the city to rob me, so that won't even work.
All the allegations may be true but by definition governments operate in the public interest (unlike for-profit corporations which by definition operate out of greed).
This suit is obviously part of a right-wing plot.
"You never see this crap go on in wealthier areas. The city bosses know citizens will fight back and have the means to do so."
It is how affluent white progressives keep the poor out of their enclaves.
Well, they're much nicer than that in traffic court in Joliet, IL.
About half the defendants used a court-appointed translator; all of these were accused of driving without a driver's license.
The judge tells each one what the fine is and asks if defendant can afford to pay it; all defendants (via their translators) declare they can't afford to pay.
Each case is then continued for six months. Each defendant then leaves the courtroom, walks to nearby parking lot, and, umm, drives away.
"You never see this crap go on in wealthier areas." Really? I live in an ante-bellum (1859) mansion with 12-foot ceilings next door to the Woodrow Wilson library. It's a pretty wealthy area, though I'm not wealthy - I just rent one of the six apartments the mansion has been subdivided into.
Of course, the scam used on me was a little different from the one the post is about: charge people who live far away small amounts so it's cheaper to pay up than to fight it. In that case, it's probably better to pick wealthier people, whose time is worth so much they can't afford to fight the ticket. But not so wealthy they're personal friends with the governor: that could get sticky. Upper middle class is the sweet spot for this particular scam.
Uh oh! I just realized that I may have given the police forces of places like Ferguson, MO an idea on how to raise money without robbing their own citizens. Start writing bullshit $50 tickets for people in Kansas City (MO), Jefferson City, Springfield, Moberly, wherever, so long as it's far enough away to make it cost too much to fight. It helps if they're in-state, so they can lose their licenses if they don't pay.
Apologies in advance to any Missourians who get screwed over in this way in the future.
Government is just the name we give for things we choose to do together.
"One of the reasons that this sort of thing has gotten so out of hand is that it involves an inter-party squabble."
It has nothing to do with party politics. It has to do with the age-old practice of humanity: the powerful preying on the weak.
HoodlumDoodlum said...
Government is just the name we give for things we choose to do To each other
There. fixed it for ya.
These freaks are living below sea level. Need I say more?
When I was seventeen, I worked at a restaurant facing a busy road between two major thoroughfares. Speed limit slowed to 30 right near the restaurant, and we watched the tiny township police collect a good chunk of their revenue at that exact spot, often towards the end of each month. The road was and 'felt' like it ought to be a 35 or even 45 mph.
Most of the travelers were truckers and out of state cars going from one road to the other, caught unaware.
Watching this for a good year changed some of my impressions of what police departments do.
Robert Cooke,
See, I would say it has to do with party politics AND it has to do with the age-old practice of humanity: the powerful preying on the weak. Reject the tyranny of the "or" and embrace the genius of the "and"!
Dr Weevil,
That's one of the best stories I've heard this month! (Not that I'm laughing at your misfortune...) Good for you for not rolling over!
This yet another reason why public officials should be stripped of qualified immunity. When they have to personally pay damages things will be very different.
Essentially city governments in some failing cities are taxing lower income people by quota driven policing and large court fees. These people have been exempted from taxes and when they are a majority then the city cannot meet its budget. So it taxes in this round about way.
But also cities like Washington DC are issuing parking tickets to non DC residents to meet their budget and small towns are setting speed traps.
These aren't the same thing although they have the same goal. In one case city residents are being forced by quota driven ticketing to cover the city budget which city tax policies have rendered unsustainable by exempting most city residents from most taxes while losing businesses and business taxes. That was the DOJ conclusion on Ferguson.
In the other case it is (mostly) non-residents supporting a town they visit or pass near.
Wouldn't it be good to know whether your town was remaining viable due to quota-driven policing? I would bet that all large blue-model cities are actually taking out as much in quota-ticketing as they are putting in in social services in poor areas. Did you notice how distraught DeBlasio was last year when the police stopped writing tickets? He needed the money. Raging on about over-policing, then raging on about lost revenues when over-policing ended. The NYC left is really such a Kabuki play these days.
"the cities engaged in this most likely don't go out and intentionally try to beggar their citizenry with the most marginal job prospects."
Someone made the observation that St Louis County has twice as many small cities as the county around Kansas City. Some of this may just be bureaucratic self interest. Consolidation might solve much of this.
California has lots of small cities and a few do this sort of thing. Costa Mesa in Orange County has been caught reducing the time of the yellow light to increase the number of red light violations caught by their camera system.
They got me one time on a left turn. I contested it and was found guilty by 0.01 second. I don't visit or do business in Costa Mesa.
This argument is meaningless without numbers. I don't see that anyone is asking the quantitative questions:
How much does it cost to jail people for fines and outstanding fees vs how much the fines and fees bring in?
What percentage of the fines and fees never get collected?
How much of the jail and enforcement budget comes from the city budget and how much of the fine and fee revenue goes into the city budget, and which of those numbers is bigger than the other?
When you break down the fines and fees by the occasion, what percentage are "reasonable" vs "unreasonable"?
Even the city may not know the answer to these questions; they might well think they are making a profit.
But the seriousness of the charge requires quantitative answers and not hand-waving. Yes, some people get unfair fines and fees and have to go to jail, but is this really a net gain to the city budget, as the critics accuse?
From the article:She paid in installments, coming to the collections office with $50 every two weeks for more than a year. Once, after too long a jobless spell, she was late with her payment. She phoned the court collections officer and told him she was getting the money. It was in her pocket when the police pulled over the car in which she was riding, citing a broken taillight. There was already a warrant; she spent a week in jail before she could see a judge.
She made about 25 - 30 $50 payments. $1250 - $1500 dollars.
I am extremely skeptical that keeping her in jail for a week, plus court costs, came out to less than that.
Gabriel said...
This argument is meaningless without numbers. I don't see that anyone is asking the quantitative questions:
How much does it cost to jail people for fines and outstanding fees vs how much the fines and fees bring in?
Excellent points, Gabriel, but given the situation the more important one is (as you ask later) who pays the cost to jail (and find, arrest, process, etc) these people? If the city gets the fine $ but the state pays for most of the jail costs it might not matter (to the city) if the incarceration cost is more than the fine(s). It could even be the case that some of the fine $ is earmarked specifically for the police, say, while the jail costs come out of the city's general fund.
NPR did a story last week over expanded insurance coverage due to Obamacare and each of their interview subjects kept talking about how great it was that their coverage "only cost $55 a month" or something similar. I almost injured my neck shaking my head--what one party pays does not equal what something costs when some other party is also paying! The incidence of costs and benefits matters in the real world. You may have only paid $55/mo, but it sure as hell COSTS more than that.
@HoodlumDoodlum: If the city gets the fine $ but the state pays for most of the jail costs it might not matter (to the city) if the incarceration cost is more than the fine(s). It could even be the case that some of the fine $ is earmarked specifically for the police, say, while the jail costs come out of the city's general fund.
Yes, of course, hence my question "How much of the jail and enforcement budget comes from the city budget and how much of the fine and fee revenue goes into the city budget, and which of those numbers is bigger than the other?"
This problem plagues all government institutions. At the last university I worked at, our department paid students to copy and staple large print jobs, instead of using our copy machine, because the cost of the copier came out of our budget and the cost of the student worker did not. The taxpayer spent four or five times as much on our copies as a result of that perverse incentive.
Once, after too long a jobless spell, she was late with her payment. She phoned the court collections officer and told him she was getting the money. It was in her pocket when the police pulled over the car in which she was riding, citing a broken taillight.
Money is fungible. The fact that she owed $X, and she had $X in her pocket, does not mean that the $X in her pocket was going to be used to pay what she owed, no matter how useful it is to the story to imply so.
@Ignorance is Bliss:The fact that she owed $X, and she had $X in her pocket, does not mean that the $X in her pocket was going to be used to pay what she owed, no matter how useful it is to the story to imply so.
The police are issued with psychic powers when they join the force. That's why they are always gunning down people who are no threat, arresting people who are on their way to pay the money, and locking up people who dindu nuthin--everyone of these is an incident of police racism. They deliberately abuse their power against black people they know for a fact to be innocent. And that's also how they know which white people are really guilty, and are sure never to punish them without a reason.
Dr. Weevil, I have been hit with the "too expensive to fight" scam tickets in my life. The trick is, if you fight them and win, you still pay fairly egregious court costs for your hearing before a judge.
Didn't you think the corruptocrat judiciaries thought this all the way through before implementation?
You get stuck with payments to the system even if you are adjudged completely innocent.
Once again NYT faux journalism omits facts and appears to have taken the felon's word for it without corroboration. I don't practice in Louisiana, but in two minutes I accessed the court docket for Ms. Cain's case. She was charged with and plead guilty to a felony. The docket does not say so but invariably her plea was a part of a negotiated plea agreement. In May 2013, she was sentenced to three years DOC, which was suspended for three years probation. The docket recites the statutory basis for each of the court costs and fines, most of which are probably mandatory on a conviction. For those not familiar, $950 in costs and fines for a felony is about normal. A month later a restitution hearing was held that determined the value of the ring she stole at $1800. At each stage she was present and represented by counsel.
The next docket entry shows that on 8/26/2013, she appeared to the clerk's office and made a $100 payment. No other entry appears until 3/4/2015 when a capias is issued for failure to pay costs and fines as ordered. Either she was in default for the intervening time, or more likely, she was paying through her probation officer. If she had a problem paying, she could have addressed it through the probation officer -- your probation can't be revoked if you have a genuine inability to pay. Most states are very reluctant to violate someone's probation and send them off to prison for the very significant economic reasons other discussed above. In most places you have to try real hard to get sent to jail.
Following the 3/4/15 issuance of the capias, she was arrested on 3/17/15. Contrary to the story saying she spent week in jail before seeing a judge, she went to first appearance the next day, 3/18/15, where her attorney moved that she "be released to participate in special programs", the judge granted the motion and she was released. A status hearing was set for 4/2/15. At that hearing, she produced a receipt showing she had made a payment and the matter was returned to the pre-arrest status for collection.
This is not a civil traffic citation matter, she plead guilty to a felony. The costs, fines, and restitution are imposed according to statute and have nothing to do with her ability to pay -- they are a criminal sanction. Criminal sentencing options are for the court, they are not a buffet that convicted defendants are allowed to choose from. If you do not obey a criminal sanction, the court has especially coercive leverage to obtain compliance. In this case she had 36 months of probation to satisfy about $2700 - that's about $65/month, $12.50/week.
Daaaaamn Beach Brutus, nice work! Submit that in an email to the NYTimes' ombudscritter and see what response you get.
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