It's almost illegal to be poor

[gollygee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09ehrenreich.html?pagewanted=all

This op/ed is what I thought of when I read about the homeless man put in jail for stealing a couple of candy bars.

Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school.

The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks.

And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing.

Meanwhile, the public housing that remains has become ever more prisonlike, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps. The safety net, or what’s left of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.

[Raine]

1. Debtor's prison coming to a town near you. nt :-(

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. For profit "private" corporate debtor's prison. nt

[Sirveri]

13. You gotta work to pay your debts, and the prison charges you rent.

You work in the jail, get paid 8$/hour, room and board is 7.90$/hr. Have fun paying off that 10k you owe and dodging rapists in the showers.

[Kablooie]

12. If it's good enough for Little Dorrit it's good enough for you.

[iemitsu]

2. america in the 21st century.

who would have thought it would look like this?

[riverwalker]

3. and illegal to be old

if they commit the crime of living too long and needing a nursing home, and needing Medicaid. (WHAT? You mean you didn't put aside $100,000 to pay for your future nursing home? Irresponsible!) When they die, the state tries to recover from the family, making them feel like criminals.

[Zalatix]

4. It all leads to this...

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

[WhoIsNumberNone]

8. +1

[DeSwiss]

9. Yes it does:

....and

Even Chefs Can be Replaced


- I think the robots knew they had us as far back a R2D2.....

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. In some places it is illegal to be homeless. They will cart you away just for having the nerve to

show your face.

[Zalatix]

11. What a stupid idea. The taxpayers will be overburdened by those laws.

Who's going to pay for all those inmates, even in a private prison?

[Mojorabbit]

10. Oh this is so well said. nt