16 ms·

Privatizing Poverty

189 points by axiomdata316 8y ago

steve_gh 8y ago
Interesting. While I live in the UK, I had never really thought about the link between wealth and privacy, and the potential for the state to discriminate in this way. A thought-provoking read. Thanks for sharing
- gambiting 8y ago
  I live in the UK too and every day I am grateful we don't have the absolutely idiotic concept of paid bail - the police can only hold you for 48 hours without charging you with a crime, and then you have to be tried within 51 days or released on unconditional bail, so idiotic situation like the one here where someone in the article was held for 3 years without a trial can't happen. But yes, having read the article it just reinforces the impression I have of USA - that it's the "land of the free but only if you have money"
  - azeotropic 8y ago
    So they can hold you for 51 days and you just have to sit in jail until your trial?
    - gambiting 8y ago
      No, you can be released on conditional bail, but it cannot be tied to money. Commonly the conditions include reporting to the police station every day, not contacting certain people, staying at home except for certain hours etc.
      - troupe 8y ago
        In the US, bail is used to make sure people show up for their court date. How does this work in the UK?
        gambiting 8y ago
        If someone is a flight risk, they are not given any bail and just sit tight for those 51 days. But being given bail and not showing up to court results in far harsher sentence, so it's a shit game to play.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      You do get reimbursed if you sat in jail for no reason. Right?
      - gambiting 8y ago
        Not for the time spent waiting for trial. You only get compensation if you were wrongly convicted.
        Fnoord 8y ago
        So you can be waiting for trial, not get convicted (for whatever reason), and not get reimbursed for being wrongfully in jail?
        gambiting 8y ago
        Unfortunately, yes. It's the same in both US and UK. You can sue the state for loss of income/whatever, but those cases are not always successful - all they need to prove is that they had reasonable reason to keep you in jail, even if you were found innocent at the end.
        Fnoord 8y ago
        Thank you for the information. Do you know how this works in the rest of the world?
        tialaramex 8y ago
        Roughly yes. The rationale is that you were not "wrongfully" in jail. You were held in the jail because prosecutors believed you'd be found guilty of a crime (which you subsequently were found innocent of) and the court believed that you were either too dangerous or too likely to abscond if you weren't held against your will. In principle if you can show that these beliefs were unreasonable (not just wrong, but not even reasonable beliefs for the court officials to hold) you might be able to get somewhere, but I suspect a decent lawyer would tell you that this bar is too high. Conviction rate for people who go to trial in the UK is very high, because the "Full Code Test" for prosecutors tells them to never prosecute people unless they're convinced the evidence they have will support a conviction for each charge they specify.
  - yardie 8y ago
    In the US you have a right to a speedy trial. Most sign away this right while being processed. The excuse given was the lawyers needed time to prepare for trial.
  - cortic 8y ago
    I'm glad too, but some of your numbers are a bit off; https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-held-in-custody https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-... Also its worth noting our anti-terror laws seem to allow indefinite detention without charge. And ant-immigration laws allow for long (months even years) detention of migrants, without even suspicion of a crime.
    - PJDK 8y ago
      According to your link, the longest you can be held without charge is 14 days under the terrorism act. The longest ever proposed was 90 days (proposed in 2006), and the longest implemented was 28 days (between 2006 - 2011). https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/countering-terrorism/extended-pre-charge-detention https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/counterin...
      - cortic 8y ago
        Terrorism Act 2000 (which was partially ruled unlawful by the House of Lords for what its worth) allows for theoretically infinite extensions to the detention period with only a police superintendent needed to sign off on it. as for imigration 'Just over one fifth of immigration detainees are held for at least two months' : https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-detention-in-the-uk/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/im...
        PJDK 8y ago
        Have you got a source on that part of the terrorism act, it's not something I've heard of.
        cortic 8y ago
        http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents more specifically section 29, 1, (d): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/8/part/III http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/8/part/... Though F1 seems to have been edited since i last looked.. still its in theory, unlimited detention without trial. There is also the Terrorism Act 2006, which i think extended the standard limit to 26 days.. Not sure if this was ever repealed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006
  - rahimnathwani 8y ago
    If you're interested in how the UK criminal justice system has its own set of problems and biased outcomes, you might enjoy (or at least be interested by) this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GBC5Z https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GBC5Z
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > But yes, having read the article it just reinforces the impression I have of USA - that it's the "land of the free but only if you have money" There is a difference between freedom and prosperity, but largely Americans have both. Almost everyone has money, in the way that most living people have food or have clothing: people tend to try to ensure this one way or another.
nateburke 8y ago
Awareness of this issue, the criminalization of poverty, is growing in America. For example, Equal Justice Under Law (https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org) is focused solely on this problem, and has won _all_ of the 18 cases it has tried so far on behalf of victims of wealth-based discrimination.
expertentipp 8y ago
Anyone who went through the US visa process, even for the basic visitor visa B1/2, got a taste of this. One needs to set up the appointment, appointment system is handled by the subcontractor, the contractor charges you for setting up the appointment. If someone told me I have to pay for queueing in front of the embassy on the day of the appointment I wouldn't be able to say whether it's some fraudsters, or a policy of US embassy. Yeah yeah, I know - no one is entitled to visit the glorious US of A. I don't pity Americans having hardships over here in EU, because no pity is given in reciprocal situation.
- macspoofing 8y ago
  If the costs are unreasonable, it's one thing, but I don't see a problem with paying administrative costs to get a visa.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Life in the USA is all about paying extraordinary amounts for absolutely everything except things you don't really need.
humanrebar 8y ago
> In one case, a homeless man in Sacramento, California, living under a bridge received 190 citations from police (almost all related to sleeping outside and camping) and wound up being assessed $104,000 in unpayable fines. When he died of cancer in 2016, there were thirty-seven warrants out for his arrest. Whose definition of public safety does any of this serve? On the flip side, the government is powerless to address chronic mental health issues without a paper trail. We all know that poverty and mental health issues are deeply entwined. The government can't just compel mental health care on a whim. They need evidence. Evidence like trespassing citations, public intoxication arrests, and citations for defacating in public. Evidence like 911 calls when a senile resident continues to forget to turn off the oven.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >On the flip side, the government is powerless to address chronic mental health issues without a paper trail. We all know that poverty and mental health issues are deeply entwined. Only in the absence of a civilized public welfare system.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    I'm arguing for one of those, actually. But even though I'd like to see more resources focused on these problems, we can't just spend our way into good mental health care. When people are in danger or harming others, care and treatment sometimes has to be compelled. People have a right to their day in court, so some amount of evidence has to be gathered so judges can objectively rule on the relevant questions.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      I don’t think camping and sleeping under bridges are dangerous or harming others. I’m confused how this example shows your point, since your point is about dangerous people, and I’m not sure if people who sleep under bridges are necessarily dangerous.
      - 8y ago
jernfrost 8y ago
It should be like in Finland where fines are tied to your income. Poor people get small fines, rich people get big fines. That is the most logical as a fine is supoosed to be a deterrent and it does not deter if you are super rich. It is also supposed to be a fairly mild punishment so if it is always so high that you can’t pay but have to go to prison then you are suddenly handing out very severe punishment for minor infractions.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  There is actually a constitutional right to be free of "cruel and unusual punishment" in the U.S. Judges just have to start ruling that $250 is cruel when someone is in poverty. There is also a right to a "fair and speedy trial". Judges just have to start ruling that sitting in county jail for six months waiting for trial is unconstitutional.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    It has to be cruel and unusual. Fines may or may not be cruel but they're definitely not unusual.
    - praptak 8y ago
      Fines in general aren't. Fines so big that the individual cannot realistically pay them are up for discussion, IMHO. I admit there's a Catch 22 logic here though. Once a punishment starts being handed so often that it becomes a problem for society, it becomes "usual".
  - pixl97 8y ago
    Most of the time it is not the judge that delays the trial, but the lawyers. The first hearing is generally in a few days.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Ok, so for the latter do you then just release people? You can't fix a judicial system by mere declaration.
Shivetya 8y ago
the privatizing portion of the the article time and such is a bit out of place. the poor are subject to abuse by those in positions of power and it all has to do with insufficient laws to protect everyone from the abuse of government officials. A recent story on Reason (yes I know their leanings) pointed to a suburb of Atlanta with excessive fines for issues that harmed no one except of course those who could not afford it [1] the poor are not just hit by the justice system but they are hit by all sorts of government fees and regulatory policies that can force them into expensive schools just to do simple jobs like braid hair. Occupational licensing costs can keep many from productive jobs to get themselves out of the poor house. so if you want to fix it it has to be done at the legislative level. restrictions of how fines and fees are assessed. people joke that HOAs are bad have seen nothing when faced with over zealous county and city code enforcers. https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/24/georgia-town-brags-about-fining-resident https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/24/georgia-town-brags-about-...
- pc86 8y ago
  What seems a bit out of place is framing occupational licensing (meant to increase consumer safety) and codes enforcement (meant to increase public safety) as some kind of war on the poor. The fact that some things cost money is not in and of itself a negative or evil thing.
  - Mary-Jane 8y ago
    How does occupational licensing to braid hair improve consumer or public safety?
    - darpa_escapee 8y ago
      There are safety and sanitations concerns a hair stylist must take into consideration, and they are expected to understand how to properly use chemical treatments in both styling and sanitation. There was a time where getting a scratch from an unsanitized blade meant an infection that could kill you.
      - 8y ago
macspoofing 8y ago
There are hard problems with no clear solutions and then there's the 'Vera Cheeks' case outlined in the article. That should be an easy legislative fix. Minor traffic infractions (like rolling through a stop) should never result in incarceration.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
One of the ways in which the poor are isolated is through economic barriers to working and operating businesses. You can't run a food stand without a license. You can't work in many occupations without meeting minimum skill standards, which often requires undergoing an expensive licensing process. Even minimum wage is a barrier for some. Marginalized groups (e.g. chronic drug users) can find it difficult to find an employer who values their labor at the minimum wage. The stepping stone of working below minimum wage is made illegal for them, which leaves them with bottle/can collection, squeegee-ing, panhandling and petty crime as the few other alternatives. Overall, it's good to be aware of problems afflicting the poor, because the adverse effects of repressive government policies seem to fall disproportionately on this subset of the population. I think where the article discredits itself is when it presumes that people are entitled to welfare: >>If they want to get public health insurance while they are pregnant, they have to answer questions and give up information about their sex lives, their romantic histories, their medical past, their incomes, their ideas about the future of their families. In some states, if they want to receive public assistance, they must agree not to have more than a certain number of children. Their family lives are subjected to a routine scrutiny that is entirely different from the experience of middle-class families. No one is entitled to public health insurance. It is provided at the expense of others, through the taxes they are compelled to pay. Where is the privacy for those who are required to file an income tax return? Where is the privacy for those who are audited, and forced to produce an untold number of documents to prove their reported income and deductions are accurate? Where is the individual liberty in the entire process? The mandates imposed on the taxpayer fully justify conditioning use of public welfare on information disclosure. That the article overlooks this completely indicates an ideological narrow-mindedness, and callousness toward the other, who is forced to pay for these public benefits. The ideological angle is seen again here: >>It is true that the decimation of the American welfare state has helped to create a tremendous pool of people living on remarkably low incomes, who may be only tangentially connected to the labor market. The idea of the American welfare state has been decimated is a common, and inaccurate trope, often peddled by leftists. Since the War on Poverty began, per capita social spending has rapidly grown. It was vastly greater in the 1980s than the 1970s and it was vastly greater in 1990s than the 1980s: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fivethirtyeight-gov4/16fivethirtyeight-gov4-blog480.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv... https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fivethirtyeight-gov6/16fivethirtyeight-gov6-blog480.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv... By all indications, the War on Poverty has failed, given the poverty rate was declining far faster before its institution than during the 50 years since it began. Social welfare spending's negative unintended consequences, like having a measurable effect on the proclivity of women to have children out of wedlock, appear to outweigh its positive effects.
koboll 8y ago
>In what might seem a clear violation of the right to a public defender, forty-three states bill clients for their lawyers—in South Dakota, the charge is $92 an hour. Even if found innocent, clients still have to pay—and not having the money is itself breaking the law. There is zero chance this survives 4th Amendment scrutiny at the Supreme Court
- gruez 8y ago
  which has 0 chance of happening because they can't even afford a trial lawyer
  - philjohn 8y ago
    And the SC is looking like it will be stacked with "Originalists" before too much longer.
    - Mary-Jane 8y ago
      How is that relevant?
      - thatjsguy 8y ago
        People are afraid of rightwing ideologues on the Supreme Court because it means that certain cases might be reasoned from a point of view that is based less on sound legal philosophy and more on personal beliefs from the 1800s.
        java_script 8y ago
        Not even just the Supreme Court. Federal judgeships are being handed out left and right to (often unqualified but ideological) members of the Federalist Society. It's probably the biggest thing that Trump will have done that'll affect us our entire lifetimes.
        xamuel 8y ago
        There is a proper mechanism for revising the constitution: constitutional amendment. If you want to be angry at someone for what the constitution says, then be angry at the legislators who have neglected their duty to update it.
taxicabjesus 8y ago
Before I started taxi driving, I had limited exposure to the struggles of the underclass. I grew up at the upper end of "middle class", where my parents both worked for a living and made enough to save for retirement and go on vacations. One of the things I came to appreciate was the harm done in the name of "justice". I blogged about some of my experiences (most were originally posted at kuro5hin.org [RIP]). America's Make-Work Sheriff: The Anachronism of Joseph Arpaio [1] examines the United States' criminal justice system as a "make-harm program", which is a jobs program where the government puts people to work making work for themselves. [1] http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/09/americas-make-work-sheriff-anachronism.html http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/09/americas-make-work-sheriff-a... This submission mentions Gideon v. Wainwright, which is a rather important Supreme Court case that found the accused have a right to counsel for all criminal prosecutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright After Gideon got the Supreme Court to find that he had the right to an attorney, he was re-prosecuted and acquitted. IMHO, the next phase in the evolution of the United States' criminal justice system is moving away from "punishments" (revenge) towards helping the convicted with their actual problems. Something like how Germany treats the people they've convicted: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-is-prison-60-minutes-goes-to-germany/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-is-prison-60-minutes-goes-... (edit: shifted order of paragraphs)
troupe 8y ago
> she suggests that poor mothers lose their privacy altogether if they accept public assistance, I'm not sure about the altogether part, but if I don't want people to know how much money I have, going to the government and saying "I need money from other people because I'm not capable of providing for myself and my kids" is kind of the start of a process of telling people about your life in exchange for getting money from other people. The article makes some good points on bail and fines, but the idea that getting other people to pay for your living expenses should somehow be possible without giving up up any information about yourself is pretty silly.
- pas 8y ago
  UBI would have this feature. (Though any kind of collective redistribution system needs accurate identification of recipients, so that goes somewhat against privacy, and if it is implemented as Negative Income Tax, then of course accurate income and tax assessment is a hard requirement.)
- chris_mc 8y ago
  It's not that they have to give information, like name, age, SSN, address, etc., it's that they have to answer very private questions about their lives, like who they are dating, how often they have sex, do they use condoms, do they have medical conditions, etc. It's not right to make someone answer these questions just to survive and help their kids survive, because they have literally zero other options.
  - 49531 8y ago
    Especially with the rise of austerity welfare, some states want to prevent single mothers from receiving benefits if they are sexually active. It's incredibly intrusive.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    I can totally see that. But the other side is that they money they are asking for has to be taken from people who were responsible and can afford their families. Shouldn't we at a minimum require that if you seek help for family members you can't afford, that you take the same steps others take to not get any more kids you can't afford? Because unless you have a good counter argument to that, you won't get anywhere politically.
megamindbrian2 8y ago
How did it get this way? Why doesn't Department of Economic Security fix this?
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Trickle-Down Economics (Trickle-Up really), wages haven't grown in relation to inflation for lower 60% of the country since the 70's, the bottom 40% even seeing negative real wage growth since the 70's. Rent costs have gone up in most areas, security deposits and first/last months rent requirements keeps poor people out of housing. The system has been rigged in favor of the rich for decades. Someone said it above, but it's the Land of the Free only if you are wealthy.
gumby 8y ago
As was explicitly stated by the government in Ferguson, the poor were considered a resource to be mined so that taxes on the middle class could go down. Yet nothing has changed.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
edit: --clipped for correction--
- 49531 8y ago
  > According to the bureau of justice statistics, 77% [2] of individuals are released from jail without financial condition. I think your source says that 28% of individuals had non-financial release. Also that the number of non-financial releases is going down (from 40% to 28% during the years in the data), but I could be misreading it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- grasshopperpurp 8y ago
  >According to the bureau of justice statistics, 77% [2] of individuals are released from jail without financial condition. Where are you getting 77%? >Except for a decline to 57% in 2004, the percentage of defendants released each year varied only slightly, from 62% to 64%. A more pronounced trend was observed in the type of release used (figure 1). From 1990 to 1998, the percentage of released defendants under financial conditions rose from 24% to 36%, while non-financial releases dropped from 40% to 28%. The only mention of 77% I see just says total release - not release without financial condition. >Defendants with a prior conviction (51%, not shown in table) had a lower probability of being released than those without a conviction (77%). This was true even if the prior convictions were for misdemeanors only (63%). The effect of a conviction record on release was more pronounced if the defendant had at least one prior felony conviction (46%). >A bail of let's say $250 for a minor offense is, in effect, a bail of $25. Though again, in the vast majority of cases a minor offense generally means you're released for free. Why say $250 when the median of released defendants was $5,000? >The median bail amount for detained defendants ($15,000) was 3 times that of released defendants ($5,000); the mean amount was about 5 times higher ($58,400 versus $11,600) (not shown in table). For all defendants with a bail amount set, the median bail amount was $9,000 and the mean was $35,800.
  - 8y ago
ttonkytonk 8y ago
I hope this is not just "another article" for those reading it; this is the reality for poor people in general.

189 points by axiomdata316 8y ago

Interesting. While I live in the UK, I had never really thought about the link between wealth and privacy, and the potential for the state to discriminate in this way. A thought-provoking read. Thanks for sharing

gambiting 8y ago
I live in the UK too and every day I am grateful we don't have the absolutely idiotic concept of paid bail - the police can only hold you for 48 hours without charging you with a crime, and then you have to be tried within 51 days or released on unconditional bail, so idiotic situation like the one here where someone in the article was held for 3 years without a trial can't happen. But yes, having read the article it just reinforces the impression I have of USA - that it's the "land of the free but only if you have money"
- azeotropic 8y ago
  So they can hold you for 51 days and you just have to sit in jail until your trial?
  - gambiting 8y ago
    No, you can be released on conditional bail, but it cannot be tied to money. Commonly the conditions include reporting to the police station every day, not contacting certain people, staying at home except for certain hours etc.
    - troupe 8y ago
      In the US, bail is used to make sure people show up for their court date. How does this work in the UK?
      - gambiting 8y ago
        If someone is a flight risk, they are not given any bail and just sit tight for those 51 days. But being given bail and not showing up to court results in far harsher sentence, so it's a shit game to play.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    You do get reimbursed if you sat in jail for no reason. Right?
    - gambiting 8y ago
      Not for the time spent waiting for trial. You only get compensation if you were wrongly convicted.
      - Fnoord 8y ago
        So you can be waiting for trial, not get convicted (for whatever reason), and not get reimbursed for being wrongfully in jail?
        gambiting 8y ago
        Unfortunately, yes. It's the same in both US and UK. You can sue the state for loss of income/whatever, but those cases are not always successful - all they need to prove is that they had reasonable reason to keep you in jail, even if you were found innocent at the end.
        Fnoord 8y ago
        Thank you for the information. Do you know how this works in the rest of the world?
        tialaramex 8y ago
        Roughly yes. The rationale is that you were not "wrongfully" in jail. You were held in the jail because prosecutors believed you'd be found guilty of a crime (which you subsequently were found innocent of) and the court believed that you were either too dangerous or too likely to abscond if you weren't held against your will. In principle if you can show that these beliefs were unreasonable (not just wrong, but not even reasonable beliefs for the court officials to hold) you might be able to get somewhere, but I suspect a decent lawyer would tell you that this bar is too high. Conviction rate for people who go to trial in the UK is very high, because the "Full Code Test" for prosecutors tells them to never prosecute people unless they're convinced the evidence they have will support a conviction for each charge they specify.
- yardie 8y ago
  In the US you have a right to a speedy trial. Most sign away this right while being processed. The excuse given was the lawyers needed time to prepare for trial.
- cortic 8y ago
  I'm glad too, but some of your numbers are a bit off; https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-held-in-custody https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-... Also its worth noting our anti-terror laws seem to allow indefinite detention without charge. And ant-immigration laws allow for long (months even years) detention of migrants, without even suspicion of a crime.
  - PJDK 8y ago
    According to your link, the longest you can be held without charge is 14 days under the terrorism act. The longest ever proposed was 90 days (proposed in 2006), and the longest implemented was 28 days (between 2006 - 2011). https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/countering-terrorism/extended-pre-charge-detention https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/human-rights/counterin...
    - cortic 8y ago
      Terrorism Act 2000 (which was partially ruled unlawful by the House of Lords for what its worth) allows for theoretically infinite extensions to the detention period with only a police superintendent needed to sign off on it. as for imigration 'Just over one fifth of immigration detainees are held for at least two months' : https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-detention-in-the-uk/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/im...
      - PJDK 8y ago
        Have you got a source on that part of the terrorism act, it's not something I've heard of.
        cortic 8y ago
        http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents more specifically section 29, 1, (d): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/8/part/III http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/8/part/... Though F1 seems to have been edited since i last looked.. still its in theory, unlimited detention without trial. There is also the Terrorism Act 2006, which i think extended the standard limit to 26 days.. Not sure if this was ever repealed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  If you're interested in how the UK criminal justice system has its own set of problems and biased outcomes, you might enjoy (or at least be interested by) this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GBC5Z https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GBC5Z
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > But yes, having read the article it just reinforces the impression I have of USA - that it's the "land of the free but only if you have money" There is a difference between freedom and prosperity, but largely Americans have both. Almost everyone has money, in the way that most living people have food or have clothing: people tend to try to ensure this one way or another.

nateburke 8y ago

Awareness of this issue, the criminalization of poverty, is growing in America. For example, Equal Justice Under Law (https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org https://equaljusticeunderlaw.org) is focused solely on this problem, and has won _all_ of the 18 cases it has tried so far on behalf of victims of wealth-based discrimination.

expertentipp 8y ago

Anyone who went through the US visa process, even for the basic visitor visa B1/2, got a taste of this. One needs to set up the appointment, appointment system is handled by the subcontractor, the contractor charges you for setting up the appointment. If someone told me I have to pay for queueing in front of the embassy on the day of the appointment I wouldn't be able to say whether it's some fraudsters, or a policy of US embassy. Yeah yeah, I know - no one is entitled to visit the glorious US of A. I don't pity Americans having hardships over here in EU, because no pity is given in reciprocal situation.

macspoofing 8y ago
If the costs are unreasonable, it's one thing, but I don't see a problem with paying administrative costs to get a visa.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
Life in the USA is all about paying extraordinary amounts for absolutely everything except things you don't really need.

humanrebar 8y ago

> In one case, a homeless man in Sacramento, California, living under a bridge received 190 citations from police (almost all related to sleeping outside and camping) and wound up being assessed $104,000 in unpayable fines. When he died of cancer in 2016, there were thirty-seven warrants out for his arrest. Whose definition of public safety does any of this serve? On the flip side, the government is powerless to address chronic mental health issues without a paper trail. We all know that poverty and mental health issues are deeply entwined. The government can't just compel mental health care on a whim. They need evidence. Evidence like trespassing citations, public intoxication arrests, and citations for defacating in public. Evidence like 911 calls when a senile resident continues to forget to turn off the oven.

coldtea 8y ago
>On the flip side, the government is powerless to address chronic mental health issues without a paper trail. We all know that poverty and mental health issues are deeply entwined. Only in the absence of a civilized public welfare system.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  I'm arguing for one of those, actually. But even though I'd like to see more resources focused on these problems, we can't just spend our way into good mental health care. When people are in danger or harming others, care and treatment sometimes has to be compelled. People have a right to their day in court, so some amount of evidence has to be gathered so judges can objectively rule on the relevant questions.
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    I don’t think camping and sleeping under bridges are dangerous or harming others. I’m confused how this example shows your point, since your point is about dangerous people, and I’m not sure if people who sleep under bridges are necessarily dangerous.
    - 8y ago

jernfrost 8y ago

It should be like in Finland where fines are tied to your income. Poor people get small fines, rich people get big fines. That is the most logical as a fine is supoosed to be a deterrent and it does not deter if you are super rich. It is also supposed to be a fairly mild punishment so if it is always so high that you can’t pay but have to go to prison then you are suddenly handing out very severe punishment for minor infractions.

humanrebar 8y ago
There is actually a constitutional right to be free of "cruel and unusual punishment" in the U.S. Judges just have to start ruling that $250 is cruel when someone is in poverty. There is also a right to a "fair and speedy trial". Judges just have to start ruling that sitting in county jail for six months waiting for trial is unconstitutional.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  It has to be cruel and unusual. Fines may or may not be cruel but they're definitely not unusual.
  - praptak 8y ago
    Fines in general aren't. Fines so big that the individual cannot realistically pay them are up for discussion, IMHO. I admit there's a Catch 22 logic here though. Once a punishment starts being handed so often that it becomes a problem for society, it becomes "usual".
- pixl97 8y ago
  Most of the time it is not the judge that delays the trial, but the lawyers. The first hearing is generally in a few days.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Ok, so for the latter do you then just release people? You can't fix a judicial system by mere declaration.

Shivetya 8y ago

the privatizing portion of the the article time and such is a bit out of place. the poor are subject to abuse by those in positions of power and it all has to do with insufficient laws to protect everyone from the abuse of government officials. A recent story on Reason (yes I know their leanings) pointed to a suburb of Atlanta with excessive fines for issues that harmed no one except of course those who could not afford it [1] the poor are not just hit by the justice system but they are hit by all sorts of government fees and regulatory policies that can force them into expensive schools just to do simple jobs like braid hair. Occupational licensing costs can keep many from productive jobs to get themselves out of the poor house. so if you want to fix it it has to be done at the legislative level. restrictions of how fines and fees are assessed. people joke that HOAs are bad have seen nothing when faced with over zealous county and city code enforcers. https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/24/georgia-town-brags-about-fining-resident https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/24/georgia-town-brags-about-...

pc86 8y ago
What seems a bit out of place is framing occupational licensing (meant to increase consumer safety) and codes enforcement (meant to increase public safety) as some kind of war on the poor. The fact that some things cost money is not in and of itself a negative or evil thing.
- Mary-Jane 8y ago
  How does occupational licensing to braid hair improve consumer or public safety?
  - darpa_escapee 8y ago
    There are safety and sanitations concerns a hair stylist must take into consideration, and they are expected to understand how to properly use chemical treatments in both styling and sanitation. There was a time where getting a scratch from an unsanitized blade meant an infection that could kill you.
    - 8y ago

macspoofing 8y ago

There are hard problems with no clear solutions and then there's the 'Vera Cheeks' case outlined in the article. That should be an easy legislative fix. Minor traffic infractions (like rolling through a stop) should never result in incarceration.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

One of the ways in which the poor are isolated is through economic barriers to working and operating businesses. You can't run a food stand without a license. You can't work in many occupations without meeting minimum skill standards, which often requires undergoing an expensive licensing process. Even minimum wage is a barrier for some. Marginalized groups (e.g. chronic drug users) can find it difficult to find an employer who values their labor at the minimum wage. The stepping stone of working below minimum wage is made illegal for them, which leaves them with bottle/can collection, squeegee-ing, panhandling and petty crime as the few other alternatives. Overall, it's good to be aware of problems afflicting the poor, because the adverse effects of repressive government policies seem to fall disproportionately on this subset of the population. I think where the article discredits itself is when it presumes that people are entitled to welfare: >>If they want to get public health insurance while they are pregnant, they have to answer questions and give up information about their sex lives, their romantic histories, their medical past, their incomes, their ideas about the future of their families. In some states, if they want to receive public assistance, they must agree not to have more than a certain number of children. Their family lives are subjected to a routine scrutiny that is entirely different from the experience of middle-class families. No one is entitled to public health insurance. It is provided at the expense of others, through the taxes they are compelled to pay. Where is the privacy for those who are required to file an income tax return? Where is the privacy for those who are audited, and forced to produce an untold number of documents to prove their reported income and deductions are accurate? Where is the individual liberty in the entire process? The mandates imposed on the taxpayer fully justify conditioning use of public welfare on information disclosure. That the article overlooks this completely indicates an ideological narrow-mindedness, and callousness toward the other, who is forced to pay for these public benefits. The ideological angle is seen again here: >>It is true that the decimation of the American welfare state has helped to create a tremendous pool of people living on remarkably low incomes, who may be only tangentially connected to the labor market. The idea of the American welfare state has been decimated is a common, and inaccurate trope, often peddled by leftists. Since the War on Poverty began, per capita social spending has rapidly grown. It was vastly greater in the 1980s than the 1970s and it was vastly greater in 1990s than the 1980s: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fivethirtyeight-gov4/16fivethirtyeight-gov4-blog480.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv... https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fivethirtyeight-gov6/16fivethirtyeight-gov6-blog480.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/01/16/us/politics/16fiv... By all indications, the War on Poverty has failed, given the poverty rate was declining far faster before its institution than during the 50 years since it began. Social welfare spending's negative unintended consequences, like having a measurable effect on the proclivity of women to have children out of wedlock, appear to outweigh its positive effects.

koboll 8y ago

>In what might seem a clear violation of the right to a public defender, forty-three states bill clients for their lawyers—in South Dakota, the charge is $92 an hour. Even if found innocent, clients still have to pay—and not having the money is itself breaking the law. There is zero chance this survives 4th Amendment scrutiny at the Supreme Court

gruez 8y ago
which has 0 chance of happening because they can't even afford a trial lawyer
- philjohn 8y ago
  And the SC is looking like it will be stacked with "Originalists" before too much longer.
  - Mary-Jane 8y ago
    How is that relevant?
    - thatjsguy 8y ago
      People are afraid of rightwing ideologues on the Supreme Court because it means that certain cases might be reasoned from a point of view that is based less on sound legal philosophy and more on personal beliefs from the 1800s.
      - java_script 8y ago
        Not even just the Supreme Court. Federal judgeships are being handed out left and right to (often unqualified but ideological) members of the Federalist Society. It's probably the biggest thing that Trump will have done that'll affect us our entire lifetimes.
      - xamuel 8y ago
        There is a proper mechanism for revising the constitution: constitutional amendment. If you want to be angry at someone for what the constitution says, then be angry at the legislators who have neglected their duty to update it.

taxicabjesus 8y ago

Before I started taxi driving, I had limited exposure to the struggles of the underclass. I grew up at the upper end of "middle class", where my parents both worked for a living and made enough to save for retirement and go on vacations. One of the things I came to appreciate was the harm done in the name of "justice". I blogged about some of my experiences (most were originally posted at kuro5hin.org [RIP]). America's Make-Work Sheriff: The Anachronism of Joseph Arpaio [1] examines the United States' criminal justice system as a "make-harm program", which is a jobs program where the government puts people to work making work for themselves. [1] http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/09/americas-make-work-sheriff-anachronism.html http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/09/americas-make-work-sheriff-a... This submission mentions Gideon v. Wainwright, which is a rather important Supreme Court case that found the accused have a right to counsel for all criminal prosecutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright After Gideon got the Supreme Court to find that he had the right to an attorney, he was re-prosecuted and acquitted. IMHO, the next phase in the evolution of the United States' criminal justice system is moving away from "punishments" (revenge) towards helping the convicted with their actual problems. Something like how Germany treats the people they've convicted: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-is-prison-60-minutes-goes-to-germany/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-is-prison-60-minutes-goes-... (edit: shifted order of paragraphs)

troupe 8y ago

> she suggests that poor mothers lose their privacy altogether if they accept public assistance, I'm not sure about the altogether part, but if I don't want people to know how much money I have, going to the government and saying "I need money from other people because I'm not capable of providing for myself and my kids" is kind of the start of a process of telling people about your life in exchange for getting money from other people. The article makes some good points on bail and fines, but the idea that getting other people to pay for your living expenses should somehow be possible without giving up up any information about yourself is pretty silly.

pas 8y ago
UBI would have this feature. (Though any kind of collective redistribution system needs accurate identification of recipients, so that goes somewhat against privacy, and if it is implemented as Negative Income Tax, then of course accurate income and tax assessment is a hard requirement.)
chris_mc 8y ago
It's not that they have to give information, like name, age, SSN, address, etc., it's that they have to answer very private questions about their lives, like who they are dating, how often they have sex, do they use condoms, do they have medical conditions, etc. It's not right to make someone answer these questions just to survive and help their kids survive, because they have literally zero other options.
- 49531 8y ago
  Especially with the rise of austerity welfare, some states want to prevent single mothers from receiving benefits if they are sexually active. It's incredibly intrusive.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  I can totally see that. But the other side is that they money they are asking for has to be taken from people who were responsible and can afford their families. Shouldn't we at a minimum require that if you seek help for family members you can't afford, that you take the same steps others take to not get any more kids you can't afford? Because unless you have a good counter argument to that, you won't get anywhere politically.

megamindbrian2 8y ago

How did it get this way? Why doesn't Department of Economic Security fix this?

prolikewh0a 8y ago
Trickle-Down Economics (Trickle-Up really), wages haven't grown in relation to inflation for lower 60% of the country since the 70's, the bottom 40% even seeing negative real wage growth since the 70's. Rent costs have gone up in most areas, security deposits and first/last months rent requirements keeps poor people out of housing. The system has been rigged in favor of the rich for decades. Someone said it above, but it's the Land of the Free only if you are wealthy.

gumby 8y ago

As was explicitly stated by the government in Ferguson, the poor were considered a resource to be mined so that taxes on the middle class could go down. Yet nothing has changed.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

edit: --clipped for correction--

49531 8y ago
> According to the bureau of justice statistics, 77% [2] of individuals are released from jail without financial condition. I think your source says that 28% of individuals had non-financial release. Also that the number of non-financial releases is going down (from 40% to 28% during the years in the data), but I could be misreading it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
grasshopperpurp 8y ago
>According to the bureau of justice statistics, 77% [2] of individuals are released from jail without financial condition. Where are you getting 77%? >Except for a decline to 57% in 2004, the percentage of defendants released each year varied only slightly, from 62% to 64%. A more pronounced trend was observed in the type of release used (figure 1). From 1990 to 1998, the percentage of released defendants under financial conditions rose from 24% to 36%, while non-financial releases dropped from 40% to 28%. The only mention of 77% I see just says total release - not release without financial condition. >Defendants with a prior conviction (51%, not shown in table) had a lower probability of being released than those without a conviction (77%). This was true even if the prior convictions were for misdemeanors only (63%). The effect of a conviction record on release was more pronounced if the defendant had at least one prior felony conviction (46%). >A bail of let's say $250 for a minor offense is, in effect, a bail of $25. Though again, in the vast majority of cases a minor offense generally means you're released for free. Why say $250 when the median of released defendants was $5,000? >The median bail amount for detained defendants ($15,000) was 3 times that of released defendants ($5,000); the mean amount was about 5 times higher ($58,400 versus $11,600) (not shown in table). For all defendants with a bail amount set, the median bail amount was $9,000 and the mean was $35,800.
- 8y ago

ttonkytonk 8y ago

I hope this is not just "another article" for those reading it; this is the reality for poor people in general.