Title: Nickel and Dimed into Incarceration: Cash Register Justice in the Criminal System
Abstract: IntroductionCash register likely killed Sandra Bland. Bland was stopped by a Texas State Trooper for failing to signal-a minor traffic law violation.1 The encounter escalated until the trooper ultimately arrested Bland on suspicion of assaulting a public servant, a felony.2 The judge set bail at $5,000,3 which Bland's family could not immediately afford, so she was sent to the county jail.4 Three days later, Bland hanged herself in custody with a plastic bag, her body hanging from a privacy partition.5 In this case, a routine stop and arrest turned into a tragedy. Although Bland's interaction with the criminal justice system had many troubling aspects,6 the role of cash register justice-where only those who can afford the high price of justice will receive it-is undeniable. The crushing burden of criminal justice debt has quietly punished the poor and indigent for over three decades and Bland's death exemplifies the problem's depth.Several factors pushed Bland's criminal justice encounter towards fatality. First, Texas has a notoriously high incidence of traffic stops,7 and the fees and fines this garners helps finance its criminal justice system,8 necessary in a state without income tax.9 Accordingly, even minor adverse interactions citizens have with either Texas law enforcement or the courts cost them substantially. Second, once the troopers arrested Bland, the court set her bail fee at $5,000, far more than she or her family could easily afford.10 The court did not consider her financial circumstances. Like many counties, Waller County, Texas, has a pre-set list of bail amounts applicable for each crime charged, with little discretion given to an offender's financial status,11despite a Texas law that required individual consideration of a pre-trial arrestee's finances.12 As a partial result of the fixed bail system, Waller County exhibits one of the highest rates of pre-trial incarceration in Texas, over seventy percent of charged of- fenders.13 Bland's death illustrates how even a short stay in jail can quickly and tragically unravel the lives of those who cannot afford their criminal justice debt.In recent years, criminal justice debt has aggressively metastasized throughout the criminal system.14 Private probation, bail fees, translation fees, indigent representation fees, dismissal fees, high interest rates, jail and prison costs, court fines, and community service charges, among other financial innovations, have turned criminal process into a booming source of revenue for state courts and corrections departments.15 Many citizens, whether or not they are convicted, are saddled with heavy debt and the constant threat of incarceration as a result of their interaction with the criminal courts.16 At last count, approximately ten million people owe more than fifty billion dollars in debt as a result of their involvement in the criminal justice system.17 As officials in Riverside County, California noted after approval of a plan to charge inmates for their incarceration, You do the crime, you will serve the time, and now you will also pay the dime.18By imposing fees and fines at every turn, the criminal justice system has mutated into a bewildering labyrinth for the average criminal offender, who must pay onerous user fees for every brush with the criminal courts. As criminal justice costs have skyrocketed, the burden to fund the system has fallen largely on the system's users, primarily the poor or indigent. As a result, funding of the criminal justice system has disproportionately fallen on those least able to pay. What results is a two-tiered system of punitive debt that especially punishes the poor. Because this criminal justice debt, if left unpaid, has the potential to turn into actual incarceration or substantial fines, these endless fees, fines, and cost can add up to much more serious punishment. This violates the Sixth Amendment right to have all punishment decided by a jury. …
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 17
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