Criminalizing Being Poor

We’ve talked here about how our country has a modern day debtors’ prison system that criminalizes being poor. In an earlier post, we discussed the prison-for-debt world, populated mostly by poor people of color who have essentially been shaken down by the local police force and then fined and jailed in squalid, medieval-like prisons for… Read More

Modern Day Debtors’ Prison

One of the many disturbing things that came to light after the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown was the City’s abuse of court fines and fees in order to create what is essentially a modern day debtors’ prison. This is a problem plaguing many cities, big and small, around the country: a prison-for-debt world… Read More