By Steve Otto
Last Thursday about 50 people showed up for a discussion on
fines and the criminal justice system. The event was put on by Progeny.
The audience was more than half Afro-Americans. That is
probably because there seem to be a consensus that the US Criminal Justice
System is very racist and holds Afro-Americans back.
On the ideas being discussed:
People of color, and poor people in general, get trapped in
the system. The use of heavy fines causes many people to end up in jail, often do
to a lack of having a decent income for them to pay off the heavy fines. Those heavy
fines where a major concern of the people at this discussion.
“We don’t know what they do with this money,” a young boy said.
“It doesn’t go back to our communities.”
It was also pointed out that the US Criminal System became
more repressive after slavery ended. Some of the intent of our laws are to create
cheap labor for those who used to be
slaves and it is a method of control.
Some people suggested this state and country needs to up
the age of the juvenile classification[1] from
18 or 21 to 25. The idea is that young people in their early 20s do things that
older people would not do. They act more like juveniles than adults.
DUI divergence is as racket. The person has to pay thousand
in fines to keep their record clean. This is another part of the fines that keep
poor people poor.
There was some in attendance who pointed out that incarceration
just doesn’t work. Those long sentences keep people from any normal life for years
at a time. And they don’t really prevent a person from committing more crimes. They
may even encourage further crimes since it makes it hard for a person who has
been in the system to get a legitimate jobs.
I was told that many of the people present really believe
they can get the support they need to change at least some of the problems and inequities
in the criminal justice system.
[1]
A "juvenile"
is a person who has not attained his eighteenth birthday, and "juvenile
delinquency" is the violation of a law of the United States committed by a
person prior to his eighteenth birthday which would have been a crime if
committed by an adult. A person over eighteen but under twenty-one years of age
is also accorded juvenile treatment if the act of juvenile delinquency occurred
prior to his eighteenth birthday. See 18 U.S.C. § 5031.
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