The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence

[xchrom]

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/16



At the single stoplight in Harpersville, Alabama, Debra Shoemaker Ford saw the police lights flash. On that January day in 2007, she steered her beat-up black Chevy Blazer into the parking lot, under the big red dot advertising Jack’s restaurant. The officer said she had a taillight out. He asked to see her license.

Ford didn’t have one. Her license had been revoked after she failed to pay a court judgment against her for a traffic ticket in a nearby town. She hadn’t worked since a car wreck a decade earlier, surviving instead on disability payments of about $670 a month. That meant generic washing powder instead of Purex. Cigarettes, when she allowed herself, were rationed, each drag a pleasure measured in pennies. To pay the ticket, plus the fee to reinstate her license, would have meant going without essentials. Though she knew she shouldn’t, Ford, a small white woman in her 50s with a fringe of bangs and a raspy voice, regularly climbed behind the wheel of the old Chevy. In rural Alabama, it’s the only way to get around.

Ford left the parking lot with tickets for no proof of insurance and driving without a license, which would come to $745 with court costs. She didn’t know it yet, but they would also cause her to spend years cycling through court, jail and the offices of a private probation company called Judicial Correction Services. JCS had contracted with the town of Harpersville several years earlier to help collect on court fines, and also to earn a little something extra for itself. It did this by charging probationers like Ford a monthly fee (typically between $35 and $45) while tacking on additional fees for court-mandated classes and electronic monitoring.

Ford tried to meet her mounting debt to Harpersville, but as the months passed and the fees added up, she fell behind and stopped paying. In June 2007, the company sent a letter telling her to pay $145 immediately or face jail. But the letter was returned as undeliverable—a fact that did not stop the Harpersville Municipal Court from issuing a warrant for her arrest. Almost two years later, in January 2009, Ford was arrested on that outstanding warrant and promptly booked in the county jail—where, to offset costs, the town charged her $31 a day for her stay.

[Katashi_itto]

1. K&R

[Liberal_in_LA]

31. indeed

[jsr]

2. Recommend

[PowerToThePeople]

3. So sad.

If you are not making money for the man, this nation has no use for you. Off to jail.

[LisaLynne]

4. Being poor is expensive.

This is another example of that. But hey she should just stop making "bad choices" and "pull herself up by her bootstraps" or something.

[Recursion]

7. Well, she probably should stop making bad choices (eg, driving without a license, smoking, etc.)

But obviously putting her in jail isn't going to make anything better.

[LisaLynne]

9. But what exactly were her options?

Not drive? Because in rural areas, then you aren't going anywhere. Not to get groceries, not to get ...anything. She couldn't afford to get her license back, so what what she supposed to do?

[JackInGreen]

13. That's usually my question for any

'Well, there's always a choice' poser...sure, there's a choice, but at the end of the day, that person is still there, and they still have needs, if meeting them costs what they do not have, what do you recommend?
I've yet to get a decent response, though one righty had the common decency to be honest to their creed and say 'They can DIE at that point' before being shunned by all present and storming off in a huff.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. In this case, the "bad choices" argument was used.

That's even worse because it starts from the position that the person's other choices were equal in terms of cost, risk, etc.


"They can die" is a pretty honest statement of the typical underlying sentiment.


eta:

The Constitution ostensibly protects people from falling into this kind of debt-and-punishment trap. In the 1983 case Bearden v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that to jail a probationer for failure to pay a fine without inquiring first into that person’s ability to pay violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But if neither the company nor the court seeks to determine indigence—and that is common—then protections for the poor never kick in.

That's the issue here.

[Recursion]

24. The "bad choice" argument was initially brought up with scorn

And I just wanted to make the point that she did in fact make some bad choices here. Which doesn't make putting her in jail make any more sense.

[Gormy Cuss]

27. I understood it the first time.

I understand it here again, that you are fixating on her "bad choices" even though at least some are Hobson's choices.

[LisaLynne]

29. Yes, I was scornful of it...

because it is deserving of scorn. People like to bring up the "bad choices" as a way to not have to feel compassion for someone or to, more often, let themselves off the hook for trying to help or work to change things.

[leftyohiolib]

22. we dont know what her options are or were but what she did was gamble and lost

some people are gonna do whatever they want to do regardless of options or consequences

[LisaLynne]

28. But can't you see how those choices are harder on someone ...

who has limited resources? A person with already limited options is going to be put in a situation where it's more likely they will end up with a bad outcome.

[Recursion]

23. This is a suburb of Birmingham. It's not Mayberry.

But, yes, those problems are why you should avoid traffic tickets if you can't afford to pay them. I agree putting her in jail is stupid, I was just disagreeing to the implication that she shares none of the blame here.

[leftyohiolib]

26. agreed but i wasnt responding to your post

[LisaLynne]

30. Yes, just avoid tickets!

Just do it! She should also avoid being poor, while she's at it.

[bluestate10]

33. Officials where she lives don't believe in public transportation. She was disabled,

so she couldn't ride a bicycle. The only issue that I have with her is the smoking, cigs are expensive, but given her background she had likely smoked since she was a teen, so giving up smoking would be hard for her. Charging her $31 per day for jail "rent" is insane, the charge puts her into a catch 22 situation. Ahhh, the wisdom of southern republican politicians, they think they can "fix" problems by making them worse.

[Vinca]

5. I'm not feeling quite as sympathetic.

It seems she was totally ignoring the original fines. I'm sorry for this person's situation, but she should have gone to the court and set up a payment schedule and gotten herself out of the mess rather than compounding it.

[JoeyT]

8. If they'd have let her.

I had to loan a friend money to pay a ticket in a well known (At least locally) shithole not too far from Harpersville, because they wanted their money and wanted it right now. Not only did they not do payment plans, the only currency they accepted was straight cash. No credit cards, no checks, no money orders.

Then I had to argue with the clerk for fifteen minutes to get a receipt for her, because one of the things they're known for is coming back a few years later, insisting you never paid the ticket, and putting out a warrant for you if you don't pay it again.

In some of these little towns there is no working within the system. Either you can afford to buy them off, or you're going to jail. Harpersville is one of them, only they're nationally known for being that kind of place.

http://blog.al.com/archiblog/2012/07/justice_has_been_sold_in_harpe.html

That one explains the problem in better detail. Even if someone manages to get the place to accept payments, they're going to charge you so much interest you'll never see the end of it.

[LisaLynne]

11. Thank you for your insights.

The problem with those of us who aren't in these situations is that from the outside, it all seems so simple. Pay the fines, just don't drive, whatever. But when you are LIVING that, it is a MUCH different situation.

[TxVietVet]

18. I spend a lot of time doing volunteer work for a homebuilding charity.

I meet all types of folks. I hear all kinds of stories. One of my 'clients' is a jailer. She told me that a lot of young folks get caught up and end up in jail on warrants for not paying tickets. From our conversations, she says many ASSUME that the tickets will just simply disappear over time. NOT A CHANCE. They are shocked when they are arrested. Go figure.

Anyone can access the daily arrest report for the county jail online. Many prisoners are picked up for 'failure to appear', no insurance, invalid or suspended license, no valid car tags, failure to pay child support and a few other charges.

Rather than them trying to work out something in the courts, many just continue their lives as if nothing ever happened and are shocked when they are picked up.

Many of those arrested have different priorities. There are no jobs created in this county. Poverty is a big issue. The county says it needs a new jail because of overcrowding. Now, if they build a new jail, chances are it will be built by a contractor from a different are with mostly undocumented workers. Hardly creating any new jobs here.

The day is coming that all this is going to come to a big confrontation or revolution or ............... an end to the abuse.

[JackInGreen]

15. Thank you

for every voice that says 'there are options' there's a smiling man with robes and badges on a string saying 'Yes, there is, pay me or die trying'

[mrchips]

16. You Try It

Wear her shoes for five days and explain how you overcame her situation. How superior you must feel sitting at your computer passing judgement.

[WinkyDink]

20. "I'm sorry for this person's situation...." Bwahahahaha! Okay.

[bluestate10]

34. She didn't have enough money coming in to pay a $700 bill, even in time.

A $700 bill sounds simple, but for a person that has little to no money, that amount is stiff.

[malaise]

6. Mercenaries and the private prison industry

are feasting on poor people.
Project the American dream is now officially a nightmare.

[ctsnowman]

12. K & R

And before the apologists chime in perhaps they should read the whole article. Thank goodness for the Nation for following stories like this.

[mrchips]

14. Go to Hell, Alabama

How evil do you have to be to go back to Dickensian injustice?

[panader0]

17. $31 a day? Hell, I had to pay $75. Oooh, but the food and the ambiance....

[madinmaryland]

35. That's what is fucked up. You put someone in jail for being poor and then charge them $31

a day for six months, and you are just making even worse.

These people can't even afford to file bankruptcy.

[wandy]

21. A god read about a sad sitituation. I did notice something............

Other GOP controlled states where parts of the workings of government (probation) have been sold to the highest bidder (privatization) and due process becomes driven by profit motivation.
I guess this is how Teapublicans intend to "take back their country".

[Orsino]

25. 16 tons. n/t

[hunter]

32. Automobiles are a fascist tools.

Our automobile culture is a fascist invention.

They are a tool of isolation and exclusion, a way of separating the "useful" people from the "useless," as defined by Big Money, Racists, Religious freaks, and all the other authoritarian scum of this nation

God forbid a useless person have a car, or live in some minimal sort of comfort and security.

Are there no Workhouses? Are there no Prisons?

There are not many transportation options in so many parts of the U.S.A.. If you don't have a car you are shit out of luck.

If you have a car and can't afford all the crap that goes with it, you are still shit out of luck.

I do like the way some nations handle things. First of all they have good public transportation. Second, they make fines proportional to income. A person with a minimal income pays a minimal fine. A person with a very large income pays a very large fine for the same offense.

In either case if the court decides you shouldn't drive anymore you can still get around.

[madinmaryland]

36. That's an interesting concept that is rarely discussed.

A good public transit system is a good start. I have not heard of making fines proportional to income. Not sure how that would work, but it would be nice to see the Donald Trump fined $500million for bad hair.