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Gregory White could not pay a $339 fine. So, the City of New Orleans imprisoned him for 198 days, costing over $3,500.
A man in Washington State was jailed for two weeks for his legal debts. How much did he owe? $60.
In a time when states are laying off school teachers and firefighters, cities and counties are locking up people who cant pay legal fees—at costs that exceed the actual amount owed.
The aggressive pursuit of defendants who do not pay legal fees seems like a good idea to cash-strapped states, but when that defendant is poor, its taxpayers who end up paying. The chances plummet for these people to successfully re-enter society, increasing the likelihood that theyll end up back in prison. Thus, a vicious cycle is born.
New reports released by the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice document this resurgence of debtors prisons, despite the fact that the Supreme Court found that imprisoning someone because they are poor violates the 14th Amendment.
These debtors prisons waste resources by attempting to extract payments from defendants who often are homeless, unemployed or simply too poor to pay.
A former chief judge in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court once wondered: "[H]ow can you describe a system where the City pays $23 a day to the Sheriff to house someone in the Jail for 30 days to collect $100 as anything other than crazy?"
"Crazy" is possibly the only way to describe it.
Reposted from the ACLU of Texas
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