ACLU: NC's "Ballooning" Court Costs Criminalize Poverty, Cost Counties

[TexasTowelie]

North Carolina counties are seeing a “net financial loss” from incarcerating people over unpaid court debt, a new report by the state American Civil Liberties Union says.

The report, “At All Costs,” looks at the consequences of rising fines and fees across the state. The ACLU submitted public records requests and observed hundreds of court sessions in an effort to understand how many people are being detained for unpaid court debt, the costs to counties, and the revenue that the state brings in from those fines and fees.

“On average, a county spends more money incarcerating a North Carolinian for court debt than that individual owes debt,” the report says.

The report tells the stories of people directly affected by these costs—including a single mother in Robeson County who had to use rent money to pay $275 in court debt, and a forty-two-year-old Edgecombe man who is still on probation four years after being released from prison because he couldn’t pay $1,300 in court debt plus a monthly $40 probation fee.

Read more: https://indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/aclu-fines-and-fees-criminalize-poverty/

[littlemissmartypants]

1. This is a disgrace. What can we do to turn this around?

How can we raise the funds needed to help and what policies can we improve to make a dent in the fees with a logical approach? Anyone have any ideas?

[steventh]

2. We must elect District Court judges with compassion (i.e., Democrats)

In Forsyth County I was sometimes successful in getting costs and fines waived for low income clients by making the argument that demanding payment from people who can't afford to pay is tantamount to debtor's prison. Some judges were good about waiving costs and fines; others weren't.