
How Cities Make Money by Fining the Poor - paulpauper
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/magazine/cities-fine-poor-jail.html
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Someone1234
The "The extra $155 was a processing fee" on the $100 fine is very uniquely
American. I've lived in a few countries, and I've never seen or experienced
that in any of them.

The whole concept of court fees kind of undermines justice. For example in
some situation pleading guilty to a traffic citation is cheaper than being
found innocent simply because the court fees are still required regardless of
guilt (and may exceed the fine itself).

I really don't understand it. The US is full of these little fees and costs
tacked onto everything. Even applying to go to college has a fee and getting a
free public education might cost hundreds of dollars in fees.

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kinos
Tell me about it. I'm in between cars at the moment, and getting a $500~$1000
beater is more trouble than its worth at the moment because it'd be $200 in
lyft fees, $75 in paperwork fees, and all the places necessary to do the
paperwork are open on different days.

I'm spending $300 a month on lyft because of it.

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randyrand
just fyi, $300 a month on Lyft is much cheaper than the average car
(~$750/month) - though not an apples to apples comparison.

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cableshaft
I think that estimate might be a bit high for most places outside the west
coast. I'm in Chicago, and I'd estimate it at about $300/mo for payment +
~$100-150/mo in gas + ~$60/mo insurance + ~$100/mo savings for maintenance
(not necessary if leasing) = ~$460-610/mo). And you can probably find a
cheaper car payment than that if you're not getting something quite so new.

But it's still more expensive than people might think. My girlfriend thought
she was going to save a bunch of money by getting a car instead of taking
Ubers to work and I had to break it to her that since she was spending about
$500/mo on Uber, getting her own car wouldn't save her much, if any, money
(but at least has other benefits). She was expecting it to save her at least
$200 a month, which would have covered just the car payment.

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Hydraulix989
Why not get a used car? Or a base model? $500/month seems pretty high for a
car payment. I was paying $350/month for a Volkswagen Jetta with the highest
trim package.

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cableshaft
I said $300/mo for the car payment. It got up to $500/mo with gas, insurance,
and maintenance. If you're referring to where I actually said $500/mo, I was
saying she's spending that much per month on hiring Uber/Lyft rides to get to
and from work.

Keep in mind, that Uber cost effectively already prices in gas, maintenance,
and insurance for the Uber driver, which are costs she'd have to make that she
wasn't really considering when wanting to get her own car (or at least didn't
realize how much it all costs).

I bought a used car and I'm paying a little under $300/mo in car payments (one
more year and it's fully paid off). My girlfriend was looking to buy a much
newer, but still used car (or lease a new car, she's still undecided), and was
looking at roughly $300/mo for car payments either way.

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thatoneuser
I’ve been driving around less “desirable” areas in my city lately and I’ve
noticed a very disturbing trend - there’s a high correlation between low
economic areas and yellow lights flipping at a speed which necessitates
20mph/s deceleration. Basically, if you live in a “poor” area you’re more
likely to break the law/be pulled over/incur a very sizeable fine.

It’s pretty disgusting and it’s hard to believe that traffic light engineering
is so complex that this is purely incidental. It’s a trap. There’s really no
other way to look at it imho. The people on the bottom who have little path
out also are being systemically attacked by predatory legal implementation.
And unlike pay day loan centers and pawn shops, this predatory behavior is
implemented by the local government itself.

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longerthoughts
This is terrifying if true. Has this been documented anywhere? I'd heard
reports of cities doing this to raise revenue from red light cameras
generally, but nothing targeted for certain economic areas.

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ggm
A recent initiative in Western Australia is aimed at paying the fines of
marginalized people, who have next to no income or forseeable mechanism of
paying, and wind up in Jail because of fine-on-fine compounding costs. I read
that the state's debt is forgiven at around $25 per day of incarceration which
is frankly disgusting. Its also highly illogical given the cost of jail is
well north of the fine per diem. Bad, racist policy (which is not unusual in
Australia, it has some entrenched historical racist policies against
aborigines, quite apart from its awful recent immigration and refugee policy)

c/f

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-08/actor-rubeun-
yorkshir...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-08/actor-rubeun-yorkshire-
criticises-wa-laws-which-left-him-in-jail/10699848)

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gammateam
When people smugly mention that crime is committed by black people I think
about the studies that show a fairly even distribution of the whole american
society admitting to doing things that are crimes

The studies are flawed, the statistics are counting the wrong thing, the
consequences are aiming to accomplish the wrong thing

I wonder if there is a way succintly articulate these observations in a way
that shows they are all related

Like, its not helpful to say “well maybe if they stopped committing crimes”
when part of the privilege is committing crimes

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yellowbuilding
I used to assume this idea was a direct result of racism, but that begs the
question of what racism is. It turns out, that is one of the most complicated
questions in the world.

Have a look at this (extremely recent) essay by an expert black historian for
a lucid take on the baffling role that race plays in American society:

[https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-
politic...](https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-
history-actually-looks-like)

~~~
gammateam
This is an amazing attempt to decipher the root of the “political differences
that weren’t”

I think this could be iterated upon in a slightly more academic form. The way
the author writes has academic wording and sources, mixed with collquialisms,
slang and almost unavoidable bias as it unfortunately requires a starting
point. It is deciphering this because of the reputational benefits of treating
trump voters as inherently bad and then trying to decipher their motives as
potentially rational agents. Its so close, but dilutes itself in a couples
ways that I think can be tweaked.

Thanks for the thoughts

