How fines and fees perpetuate injustice

[Amy-Strange]

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How fines and fees perpetuate injustice

In 1955, Mamie Till Mobley made the courageous and heartbreaking decision to hold an open-casket funeral for her son, Emmett Till. By showing what white men in Mississippi did to her 14-year-old son, she also revealed the United States' truth to itself. Those who had been able to hide their faces and look away with ease could do so no longer.

George Floyd is our Emmett Till. After seeing what happened to him, hearing his last cries for help, and realizing the blatant disregard for human life shown by each of the officers on the scene, none of us can close our eyes or look away any longer.

These past few months have been a long-overdue reckoning for white America. Though the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery were the tipping point, COVID-19 amplified the everyday injustices that have been plaguing black and brown communities for decades: inadequate access to health care, education, and jobs, combined with scandalously high rates of police contact for innocuous activities and costly entanglement in the criminal justice system.

Increasingly over the past decade, one of the many ways that systemic racism has devastated communities of color is through fines and fees imposed in our justice system. Following the 2008 recession, virtually every U.S. state and locality increased the number and amount of fines and fees imposed on people for everything from minor traffic and municipal code violations, to misdemeanors and felonies - and often used draconian tactics to collect them.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-fines-and-fees-perpetuate-injustice/ar-BB15t9IH?ocid=msedgntp
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[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. And when you are poor

You can't pull $500 bucks out of your ass because of fees. You go to jail or you have those fees compounded.

And if you go to jail the corporations profiting off jail labor get free labor slavery all over again.

[tulipsandroses]

2. Bingo! There are so many people incarcerated for low level crimes

The system can keep people trapped. And this goes for poor whites too. They get caught in the jail, probation, violation of probation, jail trap. And every step of the way, they or their families are struggling to pay the various fines and fees. They have to pay to be on probation. If they are fitted with an ankle bracelet, they have to pay for that. I see people freaking out that they will go back to jail if they can't pay whatever fee. But they can't get a job because of their record. Its exasperating. Its a system set up for failure.

And so many are in the system for minor infractions.