(MoneyWatch) Thousands of Americans are sent to jail not for
committing a crime, but because they can't afford to pay for traffic
tickets, medical bills and court fees.
If that sounds like a
debtors' prison, a legal relic which was abolished in this country in
the 1830s, that's because it is. And courts and judges in states across
the land are violating the Constitution by incarcerating people for
being unable to pay such debts.
Ask Jack Dawley, 55, an unemployed
man in Ohio who between 2007 and 2012 spent a total of 16 days in jail
in a Huron County lock-up for failing to pay roughly $1,500 in legal
fines he'd incurred in the 1990s. The fines stemmed from Dawley's
convictions for driving under the influence and other offenses. After
his release from a Wisconsin correctional facility, Dawley, who admits
he had struggled with drugs and alcohol, got clean. But if he put his
substance problems behind him, Dawley's couldn't outrun his debts.
Struggling
to find a job and dealing with the effects of a back injury, he fell
behind on repayments to the municipal court in Norwalk, Ohio. He was
arrested six years ago and sent to jail for not paying his original
court fines. Although Dawley was put on a monthly payment plan, during
his latest stint behind bars in 2012 the court ordered him to pay off
his entire remaining debt.
" I called my brother, and they
told him I have to pay off the whole fine in order for me to get out,"
he said. "That was $900. So I sat my whole 10 days [in jail.]"
Such
stories are by no means unusual. Rather, they reflect a justice system
that in effect criminalizes poverty. "It's a growing problem nationally,
particularly because of the economic crisis," said Inimai Chettiar,
director of the justice program at New York University School of Law's
Brennan Center for Justice.
Roughly a third of U.S. states today
jail people for not paying off their debts, from court-related fines
and fees to credit card and car loans, according to the American Civil
Liberties Union. Such practices contravene a 1983 United States Supreme
Court ruling that they violate the Constitutions's Equal Protection
Clause.
Some states apply "poverty penalties," such as late
fees, payment plan fees and interest, when people are unable to pay all
their debts at once. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for
instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40
percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use
so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no
right to a public defender. In North Carolina, people are charged for
using a public defender, so poor defendants who can't afford such costs
may be forced to forgo legal counsel.
The high rates of
unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing
crash have increased the use of debtors' prisons, as states look for
ways to replenish their coffers. Said Chettiar, "It's like drawing blood
from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs
of the poor."
In Dawley's home state of Ohio, the local chapter
of the ACLU announced today that it had found conclusive evidence of
such polices in 7 of 11 counties in the state that it examined over the
course of a year-long investigation. Although debtors' prisons are
unconstitutional and prohibited by Ohio law, poor defendants are
routinely jailed for failing to pay court fines, the group said in a report.
Municipal
and so-called mayors' courts -- Ohio is one of two states in the U.S.
where mayors can administer the law, even if they aren't licensed
attorneys -- also commonly do not give defendants like Dawley a hearing
or inform them of their rights to counsel, as required by law.
"They
didn't give you the opportunity to say you couldn't pay," Dawley said
of his time in court. "They just gave out 10 day sentences.... There was
nothing about your finances. Either you plead guilty, not guilty or no
contest. They give you a jail date and put you on a payment plan, and if
you don't make the payment plan you're going to jail."
In so
doing, courts fail to make a crucial distinction between defendants who
have the means to pay their debts but refuse to do so, and those who are
too poor to repay. That failure derives in large part from the lack of a
consistent legal standard for determining willful nonpayment of such
debts. As a result, while a judge in one state may take into account
that a person on food stamps is financially unable to pay court costs, a
judge across the state line might sentence that same individual to 10
days in the clink.
"If you don't have resources for an
attorney or can't afford other fees associated with court, you get a
different brand of justice," said Mike Brickner, director of
communications and public policy at the ACLU of Ohio, noting that such
practices are "rampant" in the state. "And with the economic downturn
over the last 10 years, we've seen an increase and resurgence in
debtors' prisons."
In another case the group uncovered in Ohio, a
mother of three was imprisoned for 10 days for failing to pay $540 in
fines and costs related to a conviction for driving with a suspended
license. And as in other cases where the indigent are jailed, taxpayers
ended up footing part of the bill. The total cost of arresting and
incarcerating her amounted to nearly $1,000. (For more details on the
case, see the following interview of the woman, Megan Sharp, by the ACLU
of Ohio.)
The final tab for the county? A loss of some
$930, ACLU of Ohio found. "If someone who can't pay is incarcerated, it
ends up costing the state more because it costs more to put them in
prison than what they originally owed," Chettiar said.
Jail time
can also accelerate a downward spiral for the debtor, because additional
court costs are piled on top of their previous debts. That makes
repayment even harder, and the cycle continues.
Some cities,
meanwhile, have joined states in reviving the use of debtors' prisons.
Philadelphia courts in 2011 sought to collect on court-related debt from
320,000 people, involving obligations they owed dating back to the
1970s.
Some judges have had enough. An Alabama circuit court
judge last year rebuked a municipal court and private probation company
for incarcerating people over their criminal justice debt, calling the
arrangement a "judicially sanctioned extortion racket."
Yet such
critiques are insufficient to finally lock the gates on debtors'
prisons, according to experts. Perhaps most important, poor defendants
should be exempt from court fees and fines, while repayment plans should
be set according to people's ability to repay a debt, the Brennan Center said in a recent report.
States also must have clear written standards for determining a
person's ability to pay. Fees for public defenders should be eliminated.
As
for Dawley, who said the local court has relented in recent months in
locking up people like him as public scrutiny of the issue has grown, he
doesn't expect to return to jail. He is now looking for a job. "I'd
like to get some retail work," he said.
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