
The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence - mcphilip
http://www.thenation.com/article/178845/town-turned-poverty-prison-sentence
======
smutticus
I hate the over use of the term Dickensian to describe modern social
conditions, but this is pretty much it. When you reinstitute debtor's prisons,
you're essentially reinstating an institution and its associated societal
cruft desribed in such novels as Oliver Twist. It's a massive step backwards
for American society, and quite frankly, utterly disgraceful.

~~~
bdcravens
I thought "debtor's prisons" referred to being locked up for private debt, not
fines and fees owed the government.

There's nothing new about breaking the law and going to jail when you can't
pay the fines. You'll typically sit in jail at a given rate until the debt is
paid (for example, $50/day, and there's multipliers for working while in jail)

~~~
cesarbs
The funny thing is that when someone is locked up for not paying their debt,
the government very likely ends up having spent more money doing that than
just leaving that debt alone.

~~~
gatehouse
Unless it has a deterrence effect and makes people pay faster in the future.

~~~
Jtsummers
Because we all know that deterrence is so effective. We should put a jaywalker
in the stockades in the town square every day as a warning to the other
pedestrians out there.

The problem with your suggestion (deterrence to "encourage" others to pay up
faster), these folks _can 't_ pay up faster. You ever been to one of these
small towns? There's no money, a several hundred dollar fine is a month or
more of labor for the ones that _have_ a job. They have to forgo food,
insurance, electricity, water or some other essential in order to pay off
these debts. You want them to pay faster? Get rid of the fucking speed traps
and corrupt officials that screw them.

~~~
gatehouse
I responded to an unfounded assertion with an unfounded assertion, it wasn't a
suggestion. The point I was very obliquely trying to make is that if you
choose policy based on consequences, you don't control the universe so you
might not like the results. I agree that the best course of action would be to
demolish the parasitic government, but for moral reasons, not to achieve
specific consequences.

------
pbiggar
Wow. This is actually modern day slavery, exactly as implemented in countries
like Pakistan and India[1]: you owe a debt, and you are held in servitude
until you pay it back, while racking up new bills the entire time you're
there.

[1] From my recollection of Disposable People:
[https://www.freetheslaves.net/sslpage.aspx?pid=348](https://www.freetheslaves.net/sslpage.aspx?pid=348)

~~~
maratd
> This is actually modern day slavery

Yes, it is. And contrary to the assertion of the article, this sort of thing
happens pretty much in every town in the US.

If you owe the court money and you don't pay ... you'll be thrown in jail.
Can't pay the fine? Jail. Behind on your alimony payments? Jail. The
government always gets paid.

The worst part is that the people who get caught up in this are not exactly
model citizens. Not exactly a clear case for sympathy.

Regardless, debtor prisons are _barbaric_ , period.

~~~
HillRat
Following the rulings in _Tate_ and _Bearden_ , the state cannot imprison a
defendant who has been convicted of a crime that has a sentence of a fine and
is legitimately unable to pay. To do otherwise would allow the conversion of a
sentence from fine to imprisonment based entirely on the financial status of
the offender. However, if the court determines an offender _can_ pay and is
_refusing_ to, then all bets are off.

~~~
Xdes
>the state cannot imprison a defendant who has been convicted of a crime that
has a sentence of a fine and is legitimately unable to pay.

That's assuming the court is obligated to evaluate the person's ability to
pay. A person could be in the system for months or years before the court
conducts an evaluation.

------
ars
The simple solution is that all fines must be forwarded to the State and
absolutely none kept locally. (Including everything, even fees, everything.)

That would solve virtually all of this.

~~~
maxcan
it would mitigate it but then you'd get the states pressuring the
municipalities to jack up the fines. probably better than the current
situation but not a panacea

~~~
_delirium
In some cases that would be true. But in a number of cases I think there's a
fairly particularized local bad incentive that gets mitigated at the state
level via dilution (and also looks worse, if anyone has to look at it). Texas
did something like this with traffic fines. Due to extensive abuse of small
municipalities who were trying to extract windfall profits from the fact that
they happened to be located along an interstate in Middle-of-Nowhere, West
Texas, the state did the state version of "nationalizing" to the revenue from
traffic tickets: changed the law so all ticket revenue gets sent to Austin.
This has mostly solved the problem: these small municipalities no longer have
the incentive to ticket a bunch of people.

In this case I think it's mostly due to different local vs. state incentives.
At the local level, if you happen to live in a 750-person municipality along a
freeway, ticketing people aggressively is popular, because it raises money for
the municipality, mostly from outsiders passing through. But if Austin takes
control of ticketing revenues, it gets much less popular: the average Texan
does not want aggressive ticketing on the West Texas interstates.

------
az0xff
This is revealing and utterly heart-wrenching. It's sad to hear that things
like this exist in countries as wealthy as the United States.

I hope some smarter reader comes here and says this article isn't an accurate
representation of the truth, because as it stands now I almost am not able to
take it.

~~~
HillRat
It happens more often than most of us, privileged as we are, think. The
legality of an action isn't determined by law (black letter or case), but by
law plus petition. The poorest and weakest members of society generally don't
have the financial wherewithal to effectively see court challenges through,
and public-minded legal groups only have so many lawyers and so much
bandwidth.

These kinds of practices don't require local municipalities to be full of bad
actors, but desperate ones. The private firms, on the other hand....

------
mcphilip
FYI, this was a recent submission to longform.org. If you like longform
journalism on a wide variety of topics, that site is highly recommended.

------
faddotio
I'm utterly shocked that this happened in a Southern state.

------
mdesq
Why is this the top story on HN, let alone on the front page?

~~~
zizee
Because it was voted there. If you want different sorts of stories checkout
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest) and
vote for the ones that you want.

~~~
mdesq
I obviously wasn't asking for the pedantic, condescending answer, so how is
this an acceptable answer? Downvote me all you like; I was asking a legitimate
question about how this fits the HN newsworthy criteria. "Off-Topic: Most
stories about politics..." I realize there'a lot of patting ourselves on the
back here that we're not as backwards as some random person/place, but it's
not why I came to HN.

~~~
mcphilip
I submitted this story.

There's no particular reason why it should have been front page material --
just the time of day it was submitted and the provocative title helped, I
guess. I found it interesting and am a longform journalism fan. I thought
others on HN might find it interesting so I submitted it. I have no particular
political agenda [1] and don't necessarily agree with all the content of this
piece, but it made me think about a challenging subject and seemed like it
could launch an interesting discussion.

Sorry it's not your cup of tea, just trying to add some variety to the HN
submissions.

[1] The only other longform piece I've submitted -- A Death at Tough Mudder --
is about the circumstances surrounding a participant's death at a spartan
race. I don't read longform to pat myself on the back when I find articles I
agree with. I read it to take a break from all things tech related and to
learn about new things.

~~~
mdesq
No worries. Thank you for submitting it. It _is_ interesting and I personally
don't mind it. I was more commenting on the tendency (it seems to me) of HN to
upvote different things than it used to. I also partly wanted to experiment
and prove that the comment would be downvoted as I predicted. HN tends toward
cliquishness, it seems to me.

------
delinka
"He asked to see her license. [She] didn't have one."

The article started off with the theme in the title: she can't pay the fine
for a traffic ticket. This would be pretty damning if you needed to drive to
get to work. But she hasn't worked in a decade. Presumably because of injuries
from a car wreck.

Then she's driving without a license. I'm sorry, but you can't thumb your nose
at the law like this. You don't have the right to drive around unlicensed.
She's on disability, she doesn't have a job to drive to, nor the income to pay
the fine ... so she must adapt her life to live without a license: walk to the
store, ride with someone else to go to further places. Anyway, the story goes
on from there about how she can't afford to pay the fines and the fees and ...

I'd like more information before I can really make judgement about this
person. What are the details of this 1997 (did I math that correctly?) car
wreck? Is she at fault? Were there any settlements involved? What kind of
injury does she have that keeps her from working? Can she learn to do
something that doesn't affect her disability? Specifically, what injury
prevents her working but allows her to drive?

I get that the world is unfair to the poor. I know that these collection
systems for fines with private companies involved are abhorrent. I understand
that a societal shift is needed to help with many lives that are so much less
than ideal. What I don't understand is how, when someone makes a colossal
mistake (especially one that we've all been educated about), anyone else would
blame everyone but the mistaken.

For me, this whole story hinged on that one time she got caught driving
without a license: there's no reason she should have been unaware of the
consequences.

~~~
zanny
Also, I'm confused how you were able to have a license and be considered fit
to drive, but could quality for disability and not have a job.

I'm an advocate for basic income, but I can still call bullshit in the status
quo.

~~~
ceejayoz
Have you honestly never seen someone park in a handicapped parking spot?

~~~
zanny
You can be handicapped in locomotion but still able to drive. You can also
have one of those fliers and not be able to collect disability so you never
have to work again. The point is, how can someone who is capable of driving be
given money that is meant for people _incapacitated_ and unable to contribute
to society?

~~~
ceejayoz
Maybe they can only do light physical activity - or even sit up at all - for
an hour or two? Maybe they have a debilitating mental illness but still need
to get to therapy and doctors' appointments? Maybe they've got Downs Syndrome
but are high-functioning enough to drive (it happens!)?

