how the poor are singled out for punishment over the smallest offenses [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

My son and I got on the subway...I gave him a hug and assured him that I would not be arrested and would, indeed, pick him up in time for his karate lesson. I continued downtown on my way to New York City Criminal Court. I had received a summons for "unlawful posting of a poster" a few months before...

Upon entering the room and scanning the faces, tense and anxious without exception, I quickly made eye contact with someone who resembled my local fruit vendor. I mimed and mouthed, "Fruit, right?" and he smiled, mouthed "bananas" exaggeratedly (the fruit I most frequently purchase from him) and raised his eyebrows in assent.

In the half hour before I was called up, I tallied offenses as follows, with fines ranging from $25 to $100: open container of alcohol (young Black man explained he was drinking a beer on his stoop); trespassing (young Black man explained he was visiting a friend in a neighboring housing project); standing within 10 feet of a crosswalk and thus obstructing it (really); bike on sidewalk; open container; open container; sale of beer to a minor; turning right on red (young Latino man explained he was from California and did not know this was illegal here); bike on sidewalk (young Latino man who was clearly developmentally disabled/retarded); vendor blocking pedestrian traffic; blocking driveway with pedicab; another bike on sidewalk; urination in public; urination in public; doing performance art in Union Square; jaywalking; urination in public. One older Black man had three separate counts of public urination--$50 each.

When the fruit vendor was called before the judge, he was one of the brave few to offer a spirited rejoinder. From what I gathered by the brief but heated interchange, the charges of "oversized cart" referred to the eight-inch-wide shelf projecting from one side of his cart which accommodates his pyramid of bananas (25 cents each, five for a dollar). "$100 you charge me, for my bananas? Bananas?"


http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/27/a-crime-to-be-poor