Debtors’ prisons punish low-income defendants who can’t afford to pay exorbitant court fees. Photo from Daily Kos.
By Andrew Christy, Independence Foundation Fellow at the ACLU of Pennsylvania
Debtors’ prisons, which bring to mind Dickensian depictions of Victorian England, are supposed to be a thing of the past. But cash-strapped municipalities and judicial systems increasingly pile on extra fees and surcharges to even the most minor court proceedings in an effort to balance their budgets. In Pennsylvania, these surcharges can more than double the cost of a traffic ticket or low level citation. When defendants cannot come up with the money, courts —including in Pennsylvania — waste no time in jailing them.
As awareness grows about modern-day debtors’ prison practices, so too does the movement to end them. On Friday, the National Task Force on Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices — part of the National Center for State Courts — issued a Bench Card on the Lawful Collection of Legal Financial Obligations. The “bench card” is a guide for judges on what they should and should not do when trying to collect these debts from people with limited means. This Bench Card was adopted through a vote by the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), with a CCJ resolution encouraging “inclusion of the Bench Card into the judicial education curricula created by each State for new judges and for experienced judges . . .”
In recent years, an investigation by the United States Department of Justice and lawsuits in places like Biloxi, Mississippi, and Ferguson, Missouri, have shown that tens of thousands of indigent individuals around the country are jailed every year because they are too poor to pay their court fines and costs.
With funding from the Independence Foundation, the ACLU of Pennsylvania has launched an investigation of debtors’ prison practices in this state. Data from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, as well as fieldwork by ACLU staff, has uncovered thousands of cases each year in which Pennsylvanians are jailed for failure to pay court fines and costs. While the ACLU’s investigation is ongoing, it is clear that in many of these cases, the defendant could not have been jailed as punishment for the offense, but they are ending up in jail anyway when they cannot pay the fines and costs. Summary offenses like disorderly conduct and most traffic violations carry no jail sentence, but the combination of fines and costs can easily run into the hundreds of dollars, imposing a hardship on many individuals.
The new bench card shows judges how to put into practice rulings from both the United States and Pennsylvania Supreme Courts that people cannot be jailed if they really cannot afford to pay what they owe the court. For example, the Bench Card advises judges that they should not require any immediate payment from someone whose income is below 125% of the federal poverty level; that they should consider reducing the amount owed if a defendant is unable to pay it; and that a lawyer must be provided for anyone facing possible jail time for failure to pay.
The Superior Court has said, “Courts do not imprison the poor solely for their inability to pay fines.” The new Bench Card can help Pennsylvania judges to make that promise a reality.
On to the links.
EXCERPTS
(Criminal justice news that could use a second look.)
Steve Gotzler (left) and his mentee, Jermaine Myers, are part of the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s mentoring program. Photo from The Inquirer.
From The Inquirer: “Could this one simple idea stop the revolving door to prison?”
“Mentoring is an old-school solution to a historically vexing puzzle: how to manage prison reentry in a state where 60 percent of people are locked up again within three years of being released. It’s not flashy or even, at this point, particularly novel. But early results are promising. The program, run by the Pennsylvania Prison Society through a contract with the state Department of Corrections (DOC), has worked with more than 200 people leaving Chester and Graterford state prisons since launching as a pilot in July 2015. Only two have been arrested again, according to [former ACLU-PA staffer] Steve Gotzler, the program’s coordinator. It is a small component of an extensive investment — $10.4 million this fiscal year — in reentry services by the DOC, which in 2013 began contracting with providers to address challenges like employment, housing assistance, drug and alcohol treatment and family reunification. Since July 1, 2016, the department has committed just $80,774 of that for mentoring services, according to Teresa Pinard, a deputy director in the DOC’s Department of Community Corrections. Now, Gotzler is working to take the Prison Society’s mentoring program statewide.”
From Law Enforcement Leaders: “Fighting crime and strengthening criminal justice: An agenda for the new administration”
“We need not use arrest, conviction, and prison as the default response for every broken law. For many nonviolent and first-time offenders, prison is not only unnecessary from a public safety standpoint, it also endangers our communities. Once inmates are released, they struggle to find employment, housing, and other necessities that would re-integrate them into society. Facing few legitimate opportunities, many ex-offenders return to crime. The higher the incarceration rate for such offenders, the less safe the citizenry.”
From BuzzFeed: “I always want them to feel safe and be safe”
“America’s mental health system is ailing — states were forced to cut more than $4 billion in public mental health funding following the 2008 recession. And jails and prisons have become the de facto mental health hospitals, with officers as the first point of entry. Today, police departments are more accustomed to fielding calls dealing with mental illness than in decades past. Over 2,000 police departments across the country now offer Crisis Intervention Team training, which teaches officers to identify signs of mental illness, and how to efficiently and safely get someone in crisis into the care of a mental health professional. (Despite these trainings, about a quarter of the people killed by police officers in 2015 had a severe mental illness.) And even if the Trump administration cuts funds to experiment with trauma-informed initiatives, the movement is now grassroots. (All of the funding for TRT is from Milwaukee city and county.)”
From WESA: “[Pa.] Senate To Vote On Amber Alert-Style Notification System For Injured Police Officers”
“When a child is abducted, millions of Pennsylvanians are asked to help through the Amber Alert system. State Representative Dom Costa, D-Allegheny, is hoping to use a similar system when a police officer is hurt. Costa’s bill creating an ‘Officer Down Advisory’ system, known as HB-31, was approved by the state House this week and is awaiting action in the Senate. Costa said in the case of an injured officer, enlisting the help of every citizens is a must. ‘Let’s face it, when someone is out there that has harmed an armed police officer, they are an extreme danger to the public and other officers,’ Costa said. ‘So we want to apprehend that person as quickly as possible.’”
HEADLINES
(Criminal justice news to be aware of.)
New report suggests juvenile offenders should be listened to. Photo from TribLIVE.
Pennsylvania
- From TribLIVE: “Study: Listening to youths could improve justice system.” (Read the report from The Pittsburgh Foundation here.)
- From The Post Gazette: “DA’s office asks Supreme Court to weigh new homicide trial ruling”
- From The Sentinel: “2016 Crime Review: A look at the effectiveness of sex offender registries”
- From Newsworks: “Some Pa. cities helping communities when immigrant raids happen”
- From The Post-Gazette: “Brian O’Neill: Breaking the chains of a jail economy”
- Also from The Post-Gazette: “Shuman Center supervisor fired after altercation”
- From The York Dispatch: “EDITORIAL: Civil forfeiture bill deserves to become law”
- From PennLive: “You might have missed it, but a Pa. senator’s obscene tweet made an important point: Editorial”
Philadelphia district attorney race
- From The Tribune: “Goodbye ‘Anti-Black’ Black D.A.”
- From Philly.com: “The inevitable fall of Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams,” “Seth Williams is such a disappointment,” and “With Williams out, Democratic primary for DA is wide open“
- From City&State: “Williams’ exit sparks scramble for African-American DA candidate”
- From Newsweek: “Philly cops win war against D.A. who wouldn’t prosecute suspects”
- From The Inquirer: “Dems for DA: A crowded field swings toward chaotic”
- From Newsworks: “Op-ed: Philadelphia deserves a good district attorney. What does that mean?”
Nationwide
- From The American-Statesman: “2,200 convicted persons to be notified of Austin DNA lab problems”
- From The New York Times: “Push for contentious DNA method outlasts the case calling for it”
- From Mother Jones: “‘Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?’ A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers”
- From Pete Earley: “South Dakota Hospital Tells Psychotic Patients: Go Directly To Jail. Not Welcomed Here!”
- From Vice: “A Private-Prison CEO Is Actually Testifying About a Brutal Assault in His Facility”
- From Grits for Breakfast: “If crime is down, legislator asks, why are indigent defense costs rising?”
- From the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance: “License Plate Reader Policy Development Template for Use in Intelligence and Investigative Activities”
- From New York Magazine: “The ‘Hot Felon’ Made His Fashion Week Debut”
- From The New York Times: “Hate Group Numbers in U.S. Rose for 2nd Year in a Row, Report Says”
- From The Marshall Project: “If Kids Ran Juvie”
- From Vera Institute of Justice: “Accounting for Violence: How to Increase Safety and Break Our Failed Reliance on Mass Incarceration”
- From The Washington Post: “How to curb violence, and mass incarceration, by focusing on crime victims”
- From Slate: “Solitary Confinement Is a Great American Shame”
- From the Houston Chronicle: “Federal judge’s order hits state hard over heat-related inmate deaths”
- From Voice of San Diego: “SDPD Finds a Way Around State Law Limiting DNA Collection From Juveniles”
- From Pew Research: “How Hispanic police officers view their jobs”
Trump criminal justice watch
- From The Atlantic: “The Cynical Selling of Jeff Sessions as a Civil-Rights Champion: The new attorney general had strong conservative credentials, but no record as a civil-rights advocate. So his defenders invented one.”
- From The Washington Post: “Crime stats should inform the public. Trump is misusing them to scare us instead.”
- From The Daily Beast: “Donald Trump Hallucinates Crime Wave, Can’t See Cop Triumph Outside His Window The president says every American life matters to him. If he means that, he needs to talk to the NYPD about how to protect them.”
- From The New Yorker: “Can the president ‘destroy’ criminal justice reformers?”
- From Newsweek: “Doubling as immigration officers, sheriffs applaud Trump order”
- From Reuters: “U.S. detains Mexican immigrant in Seattle covered by Obama program”
- From The Atlantic: “Why Life for Inmates Will Get More Expensive Under Trump and Sessions”
- From ACLU National: “Help Wanted: How You Can Act Locally To Stymie Trump’s Agenda”
- From Newsweek: “Does Immigration Lead to More Crime? Not According to Data”
- From The Atlantic: “The Future of Deportations Under Trump”
The Appeal is a weekly newsletter keeping you informed about criminal justice news in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond. It is written and compiled by Matt Stroud, ACLU-PA’s criminal justice researcher, along with ACLU-PA interns Morgan Everett and Bethel Habte.
If you have suggestions for links or criminal justice-related work that you’d like to highlight in The Appeal — or ways that we might improve — please email Matt Stroud at mstroud@aclupa.org. And if someone forwarded this email to you, and you’d like to receive it every Friday, you can subscribe here.
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