Introduction
1. Alicia Bannon, Mitali Nagrecha, and Rebekah Diller, “Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2010, 2, 28.
2. Alexes Harris, A Pound of Flesh (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2016), 51.
3. See United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, The Ferguson Report: Department of Justice Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department (New York: The New Press, 2015).
4. Douglas Evans, “The Debt Penalty: Exposing the Financial Barrier to Offender Reintegration,” Research and Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, August 2014, 7; Council of Economic Advisors, “Fines, Fees and Bail,” Office of the President, December 2015.
5. See Ruth Marcus, “Policing by Fleecing, in Ferguson and Beyond,” Washington Post, March 6, 2015.
1: Ferguson Is Everywhere
1. See Mathilde Laisne, Jon Wool, and Christian Henrichson, “Past Due: Examining the Costs and Consequences of Charging for Justice in New Orleans,” Vera Institute of Justice, New York, 2017.
2. Jessica Feierman, Naomi Goldstein, Emily Haney-Caron, and Jaymes Fairfax Columbo, “Debtors’ Prisons for Kids? The High Cost of Fees in the Juvenile Justice System,” Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, 2016; Eli Hager, “Your Child Is Jailed. Then Comes the Bill,” Washington Post, March 3, 2016.
3. Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 668 (1983).
4. Alicia Bannon, Mitali Nagrecha, and Rebekah Diller, “Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2010, 21.
5. Ibid., 22.
6. Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40 (1974).
7. “State-by-State Court Fees,” part of the special series “Guilty and Charged,” National Public Radio, May 19, 2014.
8. Bannon et al., Criminal Justice Debt, 7.
9. Ibid., 12.
10. John Pfaff, “A Mockery of Justice for the Poor,” New York Times, April 30, 2016.
11. United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, The Ferguson Report: Department of Justice Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department (New York: The New Press, 2015), 19, 84.
12. Joseph Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise, Poor Are Paying the Price,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, May 19, 2014.
13. Arianna Pickard, “Jail’s Revolving Door: Thousands Arrested Every Year for Failure to Pay Court Costs,” Tulsa World, September 28, 2015.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Barbara Hoberock, “Fees to Increase Friday as New Oklahoma Laws Take Effect,” Tulsa World, July 1, 2016.
17. Casey Smith and Cary Aspinwall, “Jailed for Failure to Pay,” Tulsa World, November 3, 2013.
18. See Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 1–2. Continuing into the twentieth century, men in the South (mainly African American) were convicted of “vagrancy,” sentenced to hard labor, and turned over to a private company such as U.S. Steel, which subjected the convicted men to unimaginably horrible conditions.
19. Chris Albin-Lackey, “Profiting from Probation: America’s Offender-Funded Probation Industry,” Human Rights Watch, New York, 2014, 33.
20. Ibid., 3.
21. Karen Dolan with Jodi L. Carr, “The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty,” Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC, 2014, 17.
22. Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise.”
23. Albin-Lackey, “Profiting from Probation,” 33.
24. Ibid., 36.
25. Bannon et al., Criminal Justice Debt, 1, 7.
26. Ibid., 7.
27. Ibid., 2.
28. See Laisne, Wool, and Henrichson, “Past Due.”
29. Class Action Complaint, Cain v. City of New Orleans, No. 15-4479 (E.D. La. Sept. 17, 2015).
30. Joseph Shapiro, “How Driver’s License Suspensions Unfairly Target the Poor,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, January 5, 2015.
31. Marc Levin and Joanna Weiss, “Suspending Driver’s Licenses Creates a Vicious Cycle,” USA Today, February 21, 2017; Amanda Whiting, “75 Percent of All Suspended Drivers in Virginia Are in a Debtor’s Prison Scenario,” Washingtonian, July 21, 2016.
32. Western Center on Law and Poverty, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay Community Law Center, A New Way of Life, and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California,” 2015, 4.
33. Rebekah Diller, “The Hidden Costs of Florida’s Criminal Justice Fees,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2010, 1.
34. Fla. Stat. § 322.34 (2011).
35. Mike Riggs, interviewed by Michel Martin, “Reconsidering Driver’s License Suspensions as Punishment,” Tell Me More, National Public Radio, March 10, 2014.
36. Bannon et al, Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry.
37. Ibid.
38. Joseph Shapiro, “Can’t Pay Your Fines? Your License Could be Taken,” National Public Radio, December 29, 2014, http://www.npr.org/2014/12/29/372691960/cant-pay-your-fines-your-license-could-be-taken. In January 2017, Alec Karakatsanis of Civil Rights Corps and others sued the state, contending that the licensing suspensions of people unable to afford the underlying fines were unconstitutional. Class Action Complaint, No. 3:2017cv00005 (M.D. Tenn., Jan. 4, 2017).
39. Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise”; Council of Economic Advisors, “Fines, Fees and Bail,” Office of the President, December 2015, 3.
40. Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise.”
41. Douglas Evans, “The Debt Penalty: Exposing the Financial Barrier to Offender Reintegration,” Research and Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, August 2014, 3.
42. American Civil Liberties Union, “In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons,” October 2010, 30.
43. Feierman et al., “Debtors’ Prison for Kids?”
44. Amy Silverstein, “Dallas Bills a Dead Jail Inmate for an Ambulance Ride,” Dallas Observer, April 27, 2015.
45. Shaila Dewan and Andrew W. Lehren, “After a Crime, the Price of a Second Chance,” New York Times, December 12, 2016; Shaila Dewan and Andrew W. Lehren, “Alabama Prosecutor Sets the Penalties and Fills the Coffers,” New York Times, December 13, 2016.
46. Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise”; Council of Economic Advisors, “Fines, Fees, and Bail,” 10.
47. Steve Mills and Todd Lighty, “State Sues Prisoners to Pay for Their Room, Board,” Chicago Tribune, November 30, 2015.
2: Fighting Back
1. United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, The Ferguson Report: Department of Justice Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department (New York: The New Press, 2015).
2. Class Action Complaint, Fant et al. v. City of Ferguson, Case No. 4:15-cv-253 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 8, 2015); Class Action Complaint, Jenkins et al. v. City of Jennings, Case No. 4:15-cv-00252, (E.D. Mo. Feb. 8, 2015).
3. Campbell Robertson, “Missouri City to Pay $4.7 Million to Settle Suit over Jailing Practices,” New York Times, July 16, 2016.
4. Consent Decree, United States v. The City of Ferguson, Doc. No. 12-2, Case No. 4.16-cv000180-CDP (E.D. Mo. Mar. 17, 2016). The consent decree was approved by Judge Catherine Perry on April 19, 2016.
5. Clyde Woods, “Les Misérables of New Orleans: Trap Economics and the Asset Stripping Blues, Part 1,” American Quarterly 61, no. 3 (September 2009): 790.
6. Meghan Ragany, Rose Wilson, and Jon Wool, “Racial Disparity in Marijuana Policing in New Orleans,” Vera Institute for Justice, New York, 2016, 6.
7. “A Waiting List for Justice in New Orleans” (editorial), New York Times, January 22, 2016.
8. John Simerman, “Orleans Criminal Court Judges Turn Over Documents Detailing Lavish Life-Insurance Benefits,” Times-Picayune, April 17, 2013.
9. Micah West, “Financial Conflicts of Interest and the Funding of New Orleans’s Criminal Courts,” California Law Review 101, no. 2 (April, 2013): 521–52.
10. Campbell Robertson, “Suit Alleges ‘Scheme’ in Criminal Costs Borne by New Orleans’s Poor,” New York Times, September 17, 2015.
11. Ibid.
12. Class Action Complaint, Cain v. City of New Orleans, No. 15-4479 (E.D. La. Sept. 17, 2015).
13. Alexes Harris, Heather Evans, and Katherine Beckett, “Drawing Blood from Stones: Legal Debt and Social Inequality in the Contemporary United States,” American Journal of Sociology 115, no. 6 (May 2010): 1753–99.
14. American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Columbia Legal Services, “Modern Day Debtors’ Prisons: The Ways Court-Imposed Debts Punish People for Being Poor,” February 2014.
15. Ibid., 6.
16. Ibid., 7.
17. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, Fuentes v. Benton County, 15-2-02976-1 (Wa. Super. Ct. Oct. 7, 2015).
18. Texas, a major offender in the world of high fines and fees, is beginning to wake up. Chief Justice Nathan Hecht pointed out in his 2017 State of the Judiciary address that in the prior year 640,000 defendants were jailed for fines on misdemeanors that do not allow incarceration. This was the worst aspect of a revenue-amassing machine that totaled seven million such cases that resulted in collections of more than $1 billion. State Representative James White, chair of the House Corrections Committee, added, “We’ve got constitutional issues, cost issues, common sense issues and compassion issues here.” Sam DeGrave, “Texas Supreme Court Justice, House Corrections Chair Want to End ‘Unconstitutional’ Practice of Debtors’ Prison,” Texas Observer, February 23, 2017. See Texas Appleseed and Texas Fair Defense Project, “Pay or Stay: The High Cost of Jailing Texans for Fines and Fees,” February 2017.
19. Chris Albin-Lackey, “Profiting from Probation: America’s ‘Offender-Funded’ Probation Industry,” Human Rights Watch, 2014, 18–19.
20. Ibid., 44.
21. Ibid., 17.
22. Michelle Willard, “Probation Violations Help Fill County Jail,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, October 2, 2015.
23. Ibid.
24. Class Action Complaint, Rodriguez v. Providence Community Corrections, Inc., No. 3.15-cv-01048 (M.D. Tenn., Oct. 1, 2015), 18.
25. Complaint, Thompson v. Dekalb Cty., No. 1:15-cv-00280 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 29, 2015).
26. Settlement Agreement, Thompson v. Dekalb Cty., No. 1:15-cv-00280 (N.D. Ga. March 18, 2015).
27. Class Action Complaint, Edwards v. Red Hills Cmty. Prob., 1:15-cv-67 (M.D. Ga. April 10, 2015).
28. Debra Cassens Weiss, “Court and Probation Company Are Running ‘Extortion Racket,’ Alabama Judge Says,” ABA Journal, July 16, 2016.
29. Sarah Stillman, “Get Out of Jail, Inc.,” New Yorker, June 23, 2014.
30. Amended Complaint, Cleveland v. City of Montgomery, 2:13-cv-00732 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 12, 2013).
31. Class Action, Mitchell v. City of Montgomery, 2:14-cv-186 (M.D. Ala. May 23, 2014).
32. Lee Romney, “A Frenzied Start for State’s Traffic Ticket Amnesty Program,” Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2015.
33. Marcus Nieto, “Who Pays for Penalty Assessment Programs in California,” California Research Bureau, February 2006.
34. Ibid., 6, 9–10.
35. Western Center on Law and Poverty, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay Community Law Center, A New Way of Life, and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California,” 2015, 6.
36. Caroline Chen, “California Drives Up Traffic Fines with Fees Earmarked for Projects,” Center for Investigative Reporting, September 25, 2013.
37. Darwin BondGraham and Ali Winston, “OPD Still Appears to Be Targeting Blacks,” East Bay Express, February 4, 2015.
38. Western Center on Law and Poverty et al., “Not Just a Ferguson Problem,” 6, 12.
39. Ibid., 6–7.
40. Ibid., 16.
41. Ibid., 17.
42. Daniel Denvir, “How a Dragnet Snagged Philly’s Poor,” Philadelphia City Paper, October 16, 2014.
43. John Gibeaut, “Get Out of Jail—but Not Free: Courts Scramble to Fill Their Coffers by Billing Ex-Cons,” ABA Journal, July 1, 2012.
44. Suzanne Young, “A Successful Campaign in Philadelphia to Eliminate Unsubstantiated Criminal Debt,” Talk Poverty (blog), September 11, 2015.
45. Denvir, “How a Dragnet Snagged Philly’s Poor.”
46. Gibeaut, “Get Out of Jail.”
3: Money Bail
1. Jennifer Gonnerman, “Before the Law,” New Yorker, October 6, 2014.
2. Ram Subramanian et al., “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America,” Vera Institute for Justice, 2015, 7.
3. Ibid., 4–5; “Bail Fail: Why the U.S. Should End the Practice of Using Money for Bail,” Justice Policy Institute, 2012, 1, 15.
4. “For Better or for Profit: How the Bail Bonding Industry Stands in the Way of Fair and Effective Pretrial Justice,” Justice Policy Institute, 2012, 46.
5. Lorelei Laird, “Court Systems Rethink the Use of Financial Bail, Which Some Say Penalizes the Poor,” ABA Journal, April 1, 2016.
6. Nick Pinto, “The Bail Trap,” New York Times Magazine, August 16, 2015, 41.
7. Christopher Mathias, “1,500 Rikers Island Inmates Have Been Behind Bars More than a Year Without Being Convicted,” Huffington Post, April 14, 2015.
8. “What Is Happening at Rikers Island?” (editorial), New York Times, December 15, 2014.
9. Pinto, “The Bail Trap,” 45.
10. Ibid., 42.
11. Margaret Talbot, “The Case Against Cash Bail,” New Yorker, August 25, 2015.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Laird, “Court Systems Rethink”; Risk Assessment, Arnold Foundation, “LJAF Research Summary, Developing a National Model for Pretrial,” 2013.
15. Shaila Dewan, “Judges Replacing Conjecture with Formula for Bail,” New York Times, June 28, 2015; Laird, “Court Systems Rethink.”
16. Lisa W. Foderaro, “Mercy vs. Risk as New Jersey Cuts Cash Bail,” New York Times, February 7, 2017.
17. Ibid.
18. Laird, “Court Systems Rethink.”
19. Ovetta Wiggins and Ann E. Marimow, “Maryland High Court Revamps State’s Cash-Based Bail System,” Washington Post, February 8, 2017.
20. Robin Steinberg and David Feige, “The Problem with NYC’s Bail Reform,” Marshall Project, July 9, 2015.
21. “Ending the American Money Bail System,” Equal Justice Under Law, http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/wp/current-cases/ending-theamerican-money-bail-system.
22. Jonah Owen Lamb, “SF Won’t Defend ‘Unconstitutional’ Bail System in Lawsuit,” San Francisco Examiner, November 1, 2016.
23. Michael Hardy, “In Fight over Bail’s Fairness, a Sheriff Joins the Critics,” New York Times, March 10, 2017.
24. Eli Rosenberg, “Judge in Houston Strikes Down County’s Bail System, Saying It’s Unfair to the Poor, New York Times, April 30, 2017.
4: The Criminalization of Mental Illness
1. Julie K. Brown, “Behind Bars, a Brutal and Unexplained Death,” Miami Herald, May 17, 2014; Julie K. Brown, “Prisoner: I Cleaned Up Skin of Inmate Scalded in Shower; Human-Rights Groups Call for Federal Intervention,” Miami Herald, June 25, 2014; also see reporting by Brown in Miami Herald, May 17 and June 25, 2014, and May 28, 2015.
2. Eyal Press, “Madness,” New Yorker, May 2, 2016.
3. Brown, “Behind Bars.”
4. Judith Weissman et al., “Serious Psychological Distress Among Adults: United States, 2009-2013,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015, 2–3.
5. Brandon Vick, Kristine Jones, and Sophie Mitra, “Poverty and Severe Psychiatric Disorder in the US: Evidence from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey,” Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics 15, no. 2 (2012): 83–96.
6. Robin E. McGee and Nancy J. Thompson, “Peer Reviewed: Unemployment and Depression Among Emerging Adults in 12 States, Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2010,” Preventing Chronic Disease 12 (2015): 3.
7. KiDeuk Kim, Miriam Becker-Cohen, and Maria Serakos, “The Processing and Treatment of Mentally Ill Individuals in the Criminal System,” Urban Institute, 2015, 12.
8. Dean Aufderheide, “Mental Illness in America’s Jails and Prisons Toward a Public Safety/Public Health Model,” Health Affairs Blog, April 1, 2014.
9. Jenny Gold, “Report: Jails House 10 Times More Mentally Ill Than State Hospitals,” Kaiser Health News, April 8, 2014.
10. E. Fuller Torrey et al., “The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails,” Treatment Advocacy Center, 2014, 101.
11. Aufderheide, “Mental Illness.”
12. “Callous and Cruel: Use of Force Against Inmates with Mental Disabilities in US Jails and Prisons,” Human Rights Watch, 2015, 3, 11.
13. Ram Subramanian et al., “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America,” Vera Institute for Justice, 2015, 12.
14. “Callous and Cruel,” 20.
15. Matt Ford, “America’s Largest Mental Hospital Is a Jail,” Atlantic, June 8, 2015.
16. Subramanian et al., “Incarceration’s Front Door,” 12.
17. Ford, “America’s Largest Mental Hospital is a Jail.”
18. CBS News, October 31, 2014.
19. Stephen Rex Brown, “City Settles for $3.8M in Rikers Island Inmate’s Soap-Swallowing Horror,” New York Daily News, November 17, 2015.
20. Greg Dober, “Corizon Needs a Checkup: Problems with Privatized Correctional Healthcare,” Prison Legal News, March 15, 2014, 1.
21. Paul Von Zielbauer, “As Health Care in Jails Goes Private, 10 Days Can Be a Death Sentence,” New York Times, February 27, 2005.
22. Dober, “Corizon Needs a Checkup,” 1.
23. Rhonda Swan, “Time for State to Be Done with Corizon Health,” Sun-Sentinel (Orlando), December 4, 2015.
24. Timothy Williams, “A Psychologist as Warden? Jail and Mental Illness Intersect in Chicago,” New York Times, July 31, 2015.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Lisa Schenker, “New Cook County Clinic Aims to Keep Mentally Ill out of Jail,” Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2016.
28. “Cook County Jail Population Down About 700 people,” Daily Herald, January 3, 2017.
29. Eric Peterson, “Preckwinkle Addresses Role of King’s Legacy in 2017,” Daily Herald, January 13, 2017.
30. Class Action Complaint, No. 2016CH13587 (In the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, County Department, Chancery Division, Oct. 14, 2016).
31. Williams, “Psychologist as Warden?”
32. Ian Lovett, “Los Angeles Agrees to Overhaul Jails to Care for Mentally Ill and Curb Abuse,” New York Times, August 6, 2015.
33. Ibid.
34. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Reaches Agreement with Los Angeles County to Implement Sweeping Reforms on Mental Health Care and Use of Force Throughout the County Jail System,” press release, August 5, 2015.
35. Ibid.
36. Cindy Chang and Joel Rubin, “After Years of Scandal, L.A. Jails Get Federal Oversight, Sweeping Reforms,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2015.
37. Associated Press, “Former LA County Inmates File Action over Treatment of Mentally Ill Prisoners,” CBS Los Angeles, September 28, 2015.
38. Frank Stoltze, “LA Sheriff, US Dept of Justice Announces New Reforms Protecting Mentally Ill in Jails,” KPCC, August 5, 2015.
39. Maya Lau, “L.A. County Supervisors Vote to Expand Sheriff’s Mental Health Teams,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2017.
40. Devin Browne, “LA County’s Plan to Keep Skid Row’s Intoxicated out of Jail and the ER,” KPCC, January 2, 2017.
41. Maya Lau, “After Scandals, a Group of Civilians Ushers in a New Era of Oversight for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2017.
42. Julie K. Brown, “Prosecutors Find No Wrongdoing in Shower Death at Dade Correctional Mental Health Unit,” Miami Herald,” March 17, 2017.
43. Disability Rights Florida, “Department of Corrections Sued over Inmate Abuse at the Dade Correctional Institution,” September 9, 2014.
44. Disability Rights California, “Under Proposed Settlement, Fresno County Prisoners Will No Longer Be Denied Adequate Health Care,” May 28, 2015.
45. ACLU of Florida, letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for investigation of Florida prisons, June 25, 2014, https://aclufl.org/resources/letter-doj-investigation-fl-prisons.
46. CBS Miami and Associated Press, “US Investigating Florida Prisoner’s Death In Scalding Shower,” May 20, 2015.
47. “Callous and Cruel,” 64.
48. Jennifer Gonnerman, “A Lawsuit to End Abuse at Rikers,” New Yorker, December 19, 2014.
49. Ibid.
50. Michael Winerip and Michael Schwirtz, “Rikers: Where Mental Illness Meets Brutality in Jail,” New York Times, July 14, 2014.
51. Gonnerman, “Lawsuit to End Abuse at Rikers.”
52. Jillian Jorgensen, “City and Bharara Reach Settlement in Federal Lawsuit over Rikers Island,” Observer (New York), June 22, 2015.
53. Preet Bharara, United States Attorney, letter to the Honorable James C. Francis IV, June 22, 2015, https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/file/479956/download.
54. Benjamin Weiser, “Deal Is Near on Far-Reaching Reforms at Rikers, Including a Federal Monitor,” New York Times, June 19, 2015.
55. Bharara letter to Francis.
56. Ibid.
57. Michael Winerip and Michael Schwirtz, “New York City to End Contract with Rikers Health Care Provider,” New York Times, June 11, 2015.
58. Michael Schwirtz, “New Officers Add to Hope for Reform at Rikers Island,” New York Times, December 5, 2015.
59. Florence Finkle, “How to Really Fix Rikers,” New York Times, June 19, 2015.
5: Child Support
1. Due in part to the plummet in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and recent legislation, 95 percent of child support payments goes to families and just 5 percent goes to federal and state governments. Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, “FY 2015 Preliminary Data Report,” DCL-16-07, April 16, 2016.
2. Fathers account for about 20 percent of custodial parents, and a significant number of parents share custody.
3. Flexibility, Efficiency, and Modernization in Child Support Enforcement Programs, 81 Fed. Reg. 93492, 93493 (Dec. 20, 2016).
4. Melissa Boteach and Rebecca Vallas, “3 Facts You Need to Know About the Obama Administration’s Proposed Child Support Rules,” Center for American Progress, June 18, 2015.
5. Frances Robles and Shaila Dewan, “Skip Child Support. Go to Jail. Lose Job. Repeat,” New York Times, April 19, 2015.
6. Tonya L. Brito, “Fathers Behind Bars: Rethinking Child Support Policy Toward Low-Income Noncustodial Fathers and Their Families,” Iowa Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 15 (2012): 634–59.
7. Elaine Sorensen, Liliana Sousa, and Simone G. Schaner, “Assessing Child Support Arrears in Nine Large States and the Nation,” Urban Institute, 2007.
8. Ibid.
9. Robles and Dewan, “Skip Child Support.”
10. Mike Brunker, “Unable to Pay Child Support, Poor Parents Land Behind Bars,” NBC News, September 12, 2011.
11. Robles and Dewan, “Skip Child Support.”
12. Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. 431 (2011).
13. Brito, “Fathers Behind Bars,” 622–31.
14. Flexibility, Efficiency, and Modernization in Child Support Enforcement Programs.
15. Project to Avoid Increasing Delinquencies, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Support Fact Sheet Series, Number 4, “Realistic Child Support Orders for Incarcerated Parents” (2013).
16. Ibid.
6: Criminalizing Public Benefits
1. Kaaryn Gustafson, Cheating Welfare (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 668, 708; Karen Dolan with Jodi L. Carr, The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of the Criminalization of Poverty (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 2015), 7.
2. Bryan Lowry, “Bill Tightening Restrictions on Welfare Recipients Advances in Kansas,” Wichita Eagle, April 1, 2015.
3. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, “GOPsters Paradise,” April 9, 2015.
4. Ife Floyd, LaDonna Pavetti, and Liz Schott, “TANF Continues to Weaken as a Safety Net,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 27, 2015, 6.
5. Neil Abernathy and Rebecca Smith, “Work Benefits: Ensuring Economic Security in the 21st Century,” National Employment Law Project and Roosevelt Institute, January 2017, 14.
6. David Super, Public Welfare Law (St. Paul, MN: Foundation Press, 2017), 957.
7. Alexandra Sirota, “How to Build an Economy That Works for All: Support Jobless Workers’ Connection to Work and Careers,” North Carolina Justice Center, Budget and Tax Center, Oct. 2016.
8. “Media Release: North Carolina’s Unemployment Insurance System Offers Too Little for Too Few Workers for Too Short a Period,” North Carolina Justice Center, Workers Rights Project, April 7, 2016.
9. Rachel West et al., “Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America,” Center for American Progress, 2016, 39.
10. Jason Taylor, “MO Lawmakers Consider Reducing Unemployment Benefits,” Ozarks First, January 30, 2017.
11. Chris Otts, “Bevin Administration to Pull Workers from 31 Ky. Employment Offices,” WRDB, January 11, 2017.
12. Kristin Seefeldt, “We Need to Fix the Social Safety Net, Not Shame Those Who Need It,” PBS NewsHour, February 2, 2017.
13. Wisconsin Office of the Governor, “Governor Walker Approves Rule Requiring Drug Testing for Unemployment Insurance Recipients,” press release, May 4, 2016.
14. Juliet M. Brodie, Clare Pastore, Ezra Rosser, and Jeffrey Selbin, Poverty Law, Policy, and Practice (Frederick, MD: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2014), 561–62.
15. Ryan Felton, “Criminalizing the Unemployed,” Detroit Metro Times, July 1, 2015.
16. H. Luke Shaefer and Steve Gray to Gay Gilbert, Administrator, U.S. Department of Labor, memorandum, “Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency: Unjust Fraud and Multiple Determinations,” May 19, 2016, http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/Shaefer-Gray-USDOL-Memo_06-01-2015.pdf.
17. Felton, “Criminalizing the Unemployed.”
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. “State Falsely Penalizes Thousands for Unemployment Benefits Fraud. Now Victims Want Their Money Back,” Michigan Radio, January 11, 2017.
21. Paul Egan, “Aide Warned Mic. Governor Rick Snyder About Jobless Agency Leadership,” Detroit Free Press, May 13, 2017.
22. Rebecca Vallas and Sharon Dietrich, “One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People With Criminal Records,” Center for American Progress, 2014, 1.
23. Robert H. DeFina and Lance Hannon, “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Poverty,” Crime and Delinquency 59, no. 4 (2013): 562–86.
24. Marie Gottschalk, Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 243.
25. Shaila Dewan, “The Collateral Victims of Criminal Justice,” New York Times, September 6, 2015.
26. Ibid.
27. John Schmitt and Kris Warner, “Ex-Offenders and the Labor Market,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2010.
28. Human Rights Watch was specifically told by some local public housing authorities that they actually keep no data on these matters. There are four thousand public housing authorities around the country, but many either do not even keep data or do have it but do not report nationally. A government study estimated 49,000 applications were denied for public housing due to criminal activity and 9,000 residents were evicted. But the government does not report data on Section 8 vouchers, which account for more than half of federally supported housing. Human Rights Watch, “No Second Chance: People with Criminal Records Denied Access to Public Housing,” November 18, 2004, 31–34; Government Accountability Office, “Drug Offenders: Various Factors May Limit the Impacts of Federal Laws That Provide for Denial of Selected Benefits,” GAO-05-238, September 28, 2005. See also Afomeia Tesfai and Kim Gilhuly, The Long Road Home: Decreasing Barriers to Public Housing for People with Criminal Records, Human Impact Partners, May 2016.
29. Human Rights Watch, “No Second Chance,” 3.
30. The three categories are drug-related criminal activity, violent criminal activity, and criminal activity that would adversely affect the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by others. Marie Claire Tran-Leung, “When Discretion Means Denial,” Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, 2015, 7–9.
31. Human Rights Watch, “No Second Chance,” 3.
32. Tran-Leung, “When Discretion Means Denial.”
33. Ibid., 28–31.
34. Dep’t of Hous. v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125, 130–31 (2002).
35. Tran-Leung, “When Discretion Means Denial,” iii.
36. Mireya Navarro, “Federal Housing Officials Warn Against Blanket Bans of Ex-Offenders,” New York Times, April 4, 2016.
37. Texas Dep’t of Hous. and Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Community Project, Inc., 576 U.S.___, 135 S.Ct. 2507 (2015).
38. Society for Human Resource Management, “Background Checking—the Use of Criminal Background Checks in Hiring Decisions,” July 19, 2012, slide 3.
39. “Data, Analytics & Technology—Data,” LexisNexis.com, http://lexisnexis.com/risk/abpit/datasource.aspx.
40. Vallas and Dietrich, “One Strike,” 14.
41. Christopher J. Lyons and Becky Pettit, “Compounded Disadvantage: Race, Incarceration and Wage Growth,” Social Problems 58, no. 2 (2011): 257.
42. Fredrick Kunkle, “Woman Who Killed Man She Says Abused Her Can’t Escape Felony Past,” Washington Post, March 30, 2015.
43. Vallas and Dietrich, “One Strike,” 12.
44. Half in Ten and Sentencing Project, “Americans with Criminal Records,” Poverty and Opportunity Profile, 2015, 2.
45. Vallas and Dietrich, “One Strike,” 22–25; Marc Mauer and Virginia McCalmont, “A Lifetime of Punishment,” Sentencing Project, 2015, 2.
46. Vallas and Dietrich, “One Strike,” 24.
47. Ibid., 26–27.
48. Ibid., 28.
49. “Use of Criminal Histories in College Admissions Reconsidered,” Center for Community Alternatives, 2010, i.
50. Amy Hirsch et al., “Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records,” Center for Law and Social Policy and Community Legal Services, 2002.
7: Poverty, Race, and Discipline in Schools
1. A searing report done in 2016 by the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia showed that all or parts of states impose high fines and fees in juvenile courts across the board along with those imposed in adult courts. Jessica Feierman, Naomi Goldstein, Emily Haney-Caron, and Jaymes Fairfax Columbo, “Debtors’ Prisons for Kids? The High Cost of Fees in the Juvenile Justice System,” Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, 2016, 20.
2. Susan Ferriss, “Virginia Tops Nation in Sending Students to Cops, Courts: Where Does Your State Rank?,” Center for Public Integrity, April 10, 2015.
3. Emma Brown, “Five Eye-Opening Figures from the U.S. Education Department’s Latest Civil Rights Dump,” Washington Post, June 7, 2016.
4. “The Facts About Dangers of Added Police in Schools,” Sentencing Project, January 2013.
5. Monique W. Morris, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (New York: The New Press, 2016), 76.
6. U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, “Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot; School Discipline,” March 2014, 7.
7. Kari Dequine Harden, “Dealing with the School-to-Prison-Pipeline,” Louisiana Weekly, April 27, 2015. See Jason P. Nance, “Students, Police, and the School-to Prison Pipeline,” Washington University Law Review 93 (2016): 919.
8. Erik Eckholm, “With Police in Schools, More Children in Court,” New York Times, April 12, 2013.
9. Morris, Pushout, 76.
10. Deborah Fowler, Rebecca Lightsey, Janis Monger, Elica Terrazas, and Lynn White, “Texas’ School-to-Prison Pipeline: Dropout to Incarceration (2007) 18, 76.
11. Ibid., 5.
12. Associated Press, “Texas Law Decriminalizes School Truancy,” New York Times, June 21, 2015.
13. Fowler et al., Texas’ School-to-Prison-Pipeline, 71.
14. Ibid., 1, 6, 67, 79–80, 88.
15. Ibid., 8, 44, 58, 119–40.
16. Ibid., 48.
17. Ibid.
18. Deborah Fowler et al., “Class, Not Court,” Texas Appleseed, 2015, ii.
19. Texas Appleseed and Texans Care for Children, “Dangerous Discipline: How Texas Schools Are Relying on Law Enforcement, Courts and Juvenile Probation to Discipline Students,” 2016, 4, 58.
20. Donna St. George, “Judge Steve Teske Seeks to Keep Kids with Minor Problems out of Court,” Washington Post, October 17, 2011.
8: Crime-Free Housing Ordinances and the Criminalization of Homelessness
1. Eric Eckholm, “Victims’ Dilemma: 911 Calls Can Bring Eviction,” New York Times, August 17, 2013.
2. Sandra Park and Michaela Wallin, “Local Nuisance Ordinances: Penalizing the Victim, Undermining Communities?,” Municipal Lawyer Magazine, May/June 2015, 9.
3. ACLU, “Nancy Markham v. City of Surprise,” last modified August 27, 2015, https://www.aclu.org/cases/nancy-markham-v-city-surprise; Settlement, Markham v. Surprise, 2:15-cv-0169 (D. Ariz. Sept. 2, 2015).
4. International Crime Free Association, “Crime Free Programs Instructor Workshop,” Waco, Texas, October 19–21, 2016.
5. Nicole Livanos, “Crime-Free Housing Ordinances: One Call Away from Eviction,” Public Interest Law Reporter 19 (Spring 2014): 107.
6. Matthew Desmond and Nicole Valdez, “Unpolicing the Urban Poor: Consequences of Third-Party Policing for Inner-City Women,” American Sociological Association 78, no. 1 (February 2013): 117–41.
7. Eckholm, “Victims’ Dilemma.”
8. Bryce Covert, “When Calling the Police on an Abusive Partner Leads to a Victim Losing Her Home,” Think Progress, August 27, 2015.
9. Rachel Swain, Renting While Black—Antioch Tenants Charge Police with Campaign of Intimidation (American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, 2008); Williams v. City of Antioch, 2010 WL 3632197 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 2, 2010).
10. Texas Dep’t. of Hous. and Cmty. Affairs v. The Inclusive Community Project, Inc., 576 U.S.___, 135 S. Ct. 2507 (2015).
11. “Housing Not Handcuffs: Ending the Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities,” National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2016, 9–10; “No Safe Place: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities,” National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2015, 6–8.
12. “Housing Not Handcuffs,” 22, 24, 25.
13. Rebecca Vallas and Sharon Dietrich, “One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People With Criminal Records,” Center for American Progress, December 2014, 7.
14. “Housing Not Handcuffs,” 19.
15. John Flynn and Matt Kramer, “Sacramento’s $100,000 Homeless Man,” Sacramento News and Review, February 16, 2017.
16. “No Safe Place,” 8.
17. “Housing Not Handcuffs,” 11.
18. “Picking Up the Pieces: Policing in America,” American Civil Liberties Union, 2015, 15.
19. Ibid.
20. Adam Nagourney, “Aloha, and Welcome, Unless You’re Homeless,” New York Times, June 4, 2016.
21. Justin Jouvenal, “Cities v. the Homeless,” Washington Post, June 3, 2016.
22. Jennifer Medina, “Los Angeles Puts $100 Million into Helping Homeless,” New York Times, September 23, 2015.
23. Adam Murray, “Preventing Homelessness,” Los Angeles Daily Journal, October 1, 2015.
24. Adam Murray, “L.A. Has 46,874 People Who Are Homeless. If We’re Not Smart, We’ll Have 250,000 More,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2016.
25. Adam Murray, “From the Executive Director,” Inner City Law Center 16th Annual Awards Luncheon, 2016.
26. “Housing Not Handcuffs,” 7.
9: Taking Criminal Justice Reform Seriously
1. Melissa Kearney and Benjamin Harris, “Ten Facts About Crime and Incarceration in the United States,” Hamilton Project, 2014.
2. “We All Benefit from a Clean Slate for Minor Criminal Records,” Community Legal Services, Philadelphia, 2016, 1.
3. “We All Benefit.”
4. “We All Benefit.”
5. Richard A. Oppel Jr., “States Trim Penalties and Prison Cells, Even as Sessions Gets Tough,” New York Times, May 19, 2017.
6. Danielle Kaeble et al., “Correctional Populations in the United States in 2014,” Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015, 2.
7. Marc Mauer and Nazgol Ghandnoosh, “Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime: A Tale of Three States,” Sentencing Project, 2015, 3.
8. David Segal, “Prison Vendors See Continued Signs of a Captive Market,” New York Times, August 30, 2015.
9. Ibid.
10. Michele Deitch and Michael Mushlin, “What’s Going On in Our Prisons?,” New York Times, January 4, 2016.
11. James Austin et al., “Ending Mass Incarceration: Charting a New Justice Reinvestment,” n.d., 20, available at https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/charting_a_new_justice_reinvestment_final.pdf; Mauer and Ghandnoosh, “Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime,” 1.
12. James Austin, Michael P. Jacobson, and Inimai M. Chettiar, “How New York City Reduced Mass Incarceration: A Model for Change?,” Brennan Center for Justice, JFA Institute, and Vera Institute of Justice, January 2013, 6–7.
13. Austin et al., “Ending Mass Incarceration.”
14. Jim Dwyer, “An Obstacle to Progress in Brownsville,” New York Times, January 13, 2016.
15. J. David Goodman, “Council Approves Bills to Divert Minor Offenders from Court System,” New York Times, May 26, 2016.
16. Austin, Jacobson, and Chettiar, “How New York City Reduced Mass Incarceration,” 6; Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Inimai Chettiar, “The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act,” Brennan Center for Justice, 2013, 5.
17. Austin, Jacobson, and Chettiar, “How New York City Reduced Mass Incarceration,” 7.
18. Eisen and Chettiar, “The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act,” 10; S.P. Sullivan, “How N.J. Became a Nationwide Leader in Reducing Prison Population,” NJ.com, October 31, 2015.
19. Rob Kuznia, “An Unprecedented Experiment in Mass Forgiveness,” Washington Post, February 9, 2016.
20. Eisen and Chettiar, “The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act,” 6.
21. 563 U.S. 493 (2011).
22. Mauer and Ghandnoosh, “Fewer Prisoners, Less Crime.”
23. Sasha Abramsky, “How California Voters Got So Smart on Crime,” The Nation, March 26, 2015; “California’s Prison Experiment,” editorial, New York Times, November 14, 2015.
24. Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, “Changing Gears: California’s Shift to Smart Justice,” ACLU of California, 2015, 6.
25. Ibid., 4.
26. Ibid., 3, 9–11.
27. Nell Bernstein, “Prop. 47 Is Changing Criminal Justice. Will It Take Root in U.S.?” Equal Voice News, September 29, 2015; Abramsky, “How California Voters Got So Smart on Crime,” 10.
28. Bernstein, “Prop. 47 Is Changing Criminal Justice.”
29. Ben Poston, “ACLU Faults California Law Enforcement Response to Prop. 47,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2015.
30. “California’s Prison Experiment.”
31. Frank Stoltze, “Violent Crime Up for Second Straight Year in Los Angeles,” KPCC, January 6, 2017.
32. Charis E. Kubrin, Carroll Seron, and Joan Petersilia, “The Crime That Wasn’t in California,” Washington Post, March 18, 2016.
33. Robert Greene, “California’s Prop. 47 Revolution: Why Are Police Refusing to Make Misdemeanor Arrests?,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2015.
34. Robert Greene, “California’s Prop. 47 Revolution: Do Prosecutors Really Need a ‘Felony Hammer’ to Deal with Drug Offenders?,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2015.
35. Cindy Chang, Joel Rubin, and Ben Poston, “Prop. 47’s Effect on Jail Time, Drug Rehabilitation Is Mixed So Far,” Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2015; Cindy Chang, Joel Rubin, and Ben Poston, “Unintended Consequences of Prop. 47 Pose Challenge for Criminal Justice System,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2015.
36. Chang et al, “Prop. 47’s Effect on Jail Time, Drug Rehabilitation Is Mixed So Far”; Chang et al, “Unintended Consequences of Prop. 47 Pose Challenge for Criminal Justice System.”
37. “LA County Counted on Prop 47 to Save Money. It Hasn’t Yet,” Los Angeles Daily News, November 15, 2016.
38. Brett Kelman and Cheri Carlson, “Nearly 200,000 Felonies Erased by Prop 47, but Some Felons Don’t Know,” Desert Sun, December 14, 2016.
39. Kuznia, “An Unprecedented Experiment in Mass Forgiveness.”
40. Associated Press, “California: Brown Seeks Changes in Sentencing Laws,” New York Times, January 28, 2016.
41. “California’s Prison Experiment.”
42. Kuznia, “An Unprecedented Experiment in Mass Forgiveness.”
43. Kelman and Carlson, “Nearly 200,000 Felonies Erased.”
44. Bernstein, “Prop. 47 Is Changing Criminal Justice,” 12–13.
10: Turning the Coin Over
1. Myron Orfield, “Metropolitics: A Regional Agenda for Community and Stability,” Forum for Social Economics 28 (1999): 33–49.
2. Matthew Desmond, Evicted (New York: Crown Publishers, 2016).
3. John Eligon, “Minneapolis Grapples with a Community Being Left Behind,” New York Times, January 11, 2016.
4. Northside Achievement Zone and Boston Consulting Group, “Business Plan FY 2015–FY 2022,” 4, http://northsideachievement.org/wp-content/uploads/NAZ-Business-Plan-11-Web.pdf.
5. “Picking Up the Pieces: Policing in America, a Minneapolis Case Study,” Minnesota ACLU, 2015.
6. Jessica Feierman, Naomi Goldstein, Emily Haney-Caron, and Jaymes Fairfax Columbo, “Debtors’ Prison for Kids? The High Cost of Fees in the Juvenile System,” Juvenile Law Center, Philadelphia, 2016.
7. Name changed to protect anonymity.
8. Dave preferred not to have his real name included here.
9. “2015 Impact Report,” Youth Policy Institute, 11–12.
10. Annalise Orleck, “The New War on Poverty,” Talk Poverty, March 11, 2016.