how the poor are singled out for punishment over the smallest offenses

[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

[Joanne98]

1. The police state has GOT TO GO!

[ixion]

15. I'll second that...

the sooner the better! :toast:

[leftstreet]

2. K&R

[Codeine]

3. No right turn on red?

What an odd restriction. No wonder traffic backs up.

[Journeyman]

6. Woody Allen explained it as the only cultural advantage LA has over NY. . .

Annie Hall (1977)

[reggie the dog]

7. is that just new york city or all of new york state?

[hfojvt]

12. speaking of New York State

when I went to visit my grandmother in Lewis County, as I entered the county a sign said "state law requires headlights when wipers are in operation" or words to that effect.

Okay, it is a state law, by why put a notice up at the County Line? I sorta wonder if some Sherrif wasn't giving out lots of tickets for this, and some judge said "if you are gonna give out tickets, then you need some signs" Or maybe they had a bunch of accidents in the rain.

I noticed that this is also a law in Kansas, and one that is often broken. But I doubt if police give many tickets for it. They also do not enforce their snow shovelling ordinance. With so many, many ordinances though, it allows the police to be selective about who they decide to ticket and for which laws.

[tabbycat31]

14. that is a state law

My dad drilled that into me as soon as I was old enough to start driving. The day I passed my road test, the guy failed the 2 previous testers for failure to put their lights on (it was a rainy day).

I am sure it is at the state line too (I will check next time I head to NY).

[hfojvt]

18. I didn't notice it at the state line

of course it was night when I entered NY from PA and I didn't have my lights on. I didn't notice a sign at any other county border either.

I always think it is funny when I enter a state and there's a big sign that says "State Law: seatbelt use required" because I know that it is a state law of the state I just left as well. The first time I saw such a sign was in 1985 driving into Nebraska, and I was outraged. "That can't be constitutional," I said to my dad.

Imagine being young and foolish enough to think that the Constitution protected liberty.

[LooseWilly]

29. Headlights while wipers are on is required in CA too.

Just FYI...

[LibertyLover]

46. Maryland also requires

headlights to be on if wipers are being used.

[Hissyspit]

49. State law in NC, too.

And we have the signs. Why would anyone not turn on their wipers when it starts raining?

[Sanity Claws]

13. Just the city

[petronius]

23. My god, that's oppressive!

When will the other 49 learn to drive properly? ;)

[Kat45]

28. Here in MA, a lot of intersections have signs that say "No Right on Red"

You can only make a right on red if there is no sign forbidding it. And we didn't even have any right on red allowed until fairly recent times. So, not every place allows right on red.

[Gormy Cuss]

44. It's legal to turn right on red in MA.

Even though much of the urban intersections aren't safe with right on red, having it illegal would have cost MA some Federal funding so they legalized it and then erected signs everywhere for the "exceptions."

Right on red saves full and eases congestion. It also makes it much more hazardous for pedestrians since too few drivers remember that right on red doesn't trump pedestrian rules and signals.

[Kat45]

52. Exactly. But it seems that most intersections are exceptions.

I live close to the city, so I suppose I can understand it, considering the habits of MA drivers. I never knew that people could turn right on red in the rest of the country.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. K&R

Their crime in this depression, is being poor. It's not going to get better.

[siligut]

5. Just showing them who is boss

When I was on jury duty many years ago, the fellow who was on trial was a black man. Public defender, clearly hungover, didn't give this guy a chance. Then, when we got together to talk about the verdict, this old white guy, who never said anything before, just proclaimed himself head and threw the book at the guy. Anything and everything. I figure a lot of these trials are set up that way, just get one ringer who sounds like he knows what he is doing and so it goes.

[Journeyman]

8. It's all fair, as Anatole France explained in "The Red Lily" (1894). . .

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

[Vinca]

9. Unlawful posting of a poster?? Bananas?? Beer on stoop??

Meanwhile, back at the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas lies about his wife's income for years on end and files an "Oops! Sooooorrrrrrryyyyy."

[CrispyQ]

19. America: Rule of Laws

One law for the rich & well connected, & another law for the rest of us.

[hfojvt]

10. bah, he's lucky those bananas were not in pajamas

and bouncing down the stairs.

and all those fines end up being a source of funding. A type of regressive taxation.

[Hannah Bell]

33. except it costs more to collect the fines than the revenue earned.

to process all the penny-ante charges, court cases, paperwork, & follow-up

[Stuckinthebush]

11. Well we don't tax the rich...that would make us commies

So, in order for our municipalities to get money we tax the poor with silly fines.

It's all like a Monty Python skit. Except not funny.

[gratuitous]

16. Isn't it worth it, though?

I mean, would you really want to live in a world where Paris Hilton had to pay an extra three cents in taxes for every dollar she "earns" above $250,000 a year? Where is your humanity? Where is your conscience? How can you be so monstrous?

[Stuckinthebush]

22. I know.

I think my parents really failed in raising me! :)

[gratuitous]

26. Scheduling your mom right now

Skittles will be there to administer the ass-kicking.

[Puregonzo1188]

17. Great article, glad to see it posted on DU. K&R

[Odin2005]

20. It's about making it so everyone is a criminal so as to get around the Rule of Law.

[KG]

21. steal a little and they'll call you a thief, steal a lot and they'll make you a king...

[EnlightenedOne]

39. NAILED IT.

Exactly.

I was watching Cincinnati Police Women last night. So far I have watched most of the 3 shows they have shown so far. All in the poorest neighborhood in Cincinnati, and most of the "busts" were from being set up by the cops from fake johns to informants buying crack.

Its a war on the poor.

[Starry Messenger]

24. k&r

[Scruffy1]

25. The legal system is a tax on the poor.

[lonestarnot]

27. It's a fucking pox on the poor! Just to feed the machine.

[Nye Bevan]

32. Well... I guess it's a tax on the poor who do things like urinate in public (nt)

[Gormy Cuss]

45. Do you ever wonder why someone is urinating in public?

Perhaps a lack of access to a public toilet?

[LooseWilly]

30. As long as the poor have outstanding tickets, they're subject to arrest at any time.

And if too much time passes without the poor paying those tickets, then warrants begin to be issued... and police show up if there's an address on file... which helps explain why voter registration among the poor is so low, jury summons answering... not to mention maintaining a bank account (which might be useful for cashing checks without having to pay the fees that're charged at the check cashing shacks on every third corner in the "dodgy" part(s) of town)...

There's an entire art to getting by while living invisibly in the US.

[Nye Bevan]

31. I really don't have a problem with people being ticketed for public urination,

or selling alcohol to minors, or riding their bikes on the sidewalks which is highly dangerous for pedestrians). The only charges that sound dubious in the list you gave are the trespassing charge for the guy who was visiting his friend, the person obstructing the crosswalk, and the person doing performance art. Yes, crimes like public urination are committed more often by poor people (I doubt that Bernie Madoff or Ken Lay committed this crime frequently) but just because people are poor does not mean that they are exempt from the criminal justice system.

[ret5hd]

42. Do you think it might be because there were no "legit" places to pee?

[JAbuchan08]

43. If you read the article

it states that the old man who was ticketed three times was incontinent and peed in public to avoid urinating on himself in the freezing cold.

[Nye Bevan]

53. You would think after his first arrest he would figure out how to do it more discreetly (nt)

[Tace]

34. Jean Valjean -- Les Miserable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Valjean

(Wikipedia) -- Jean Valjean (also referred to as "Monsieur Madeleine," "Ultime Fauchelevent," "Monsieur Leblanc," "Urbain Fabre," "24601" and "9430"; c. 1769-1833) is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. The character's nineteen year-long struggle with the law for stealing bread (5 years for the theft, 12 years for four attempted escapes and 2 years for fighting back during one escape attempt) during a time of economic and social depression - along with police inspector Javert, who relentlessly pursues Valjean - has become archetypal in literary culture. While in prison, he was first labeled 24601 then labeled 9430. Only the first number is mentioned in the musical.

Valjean's character in Les Misérables forces the reader to evaluate their sense of good and evil and live in an existence of duality with the novel's antagonist. His struggle highlights man's capacity for cruelty to his fellow man. As a parolee, Valjean is branded an outcast and his passport (his identification card) is yellow colored - identifying him to all as a former offender much like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Valjean would be judged by social standards as evil - a known criminal and a parolee - yet grows morally to represent the best traits of humanity. Valjean becomes a repentant, honorable, dignified man after his encounter with the Bishop Myriel of Digne; he is kind to all he encounters, a devoted father, and a benefactor to those in need. Valjean occupies a place on the wrong side of the law, but the right side of human virtues and ethics.

His antithesis, Javert, should occupy a place of honor in society - he is a dedicated police officer who devoted his life to taking crime off the streets. However, the reader comes to realize that Javert represents a modern day Pharisee. Much like Jesus and the Pharisees of the New Testament, the relationship of Valjean and Javert is a binary opposition between law and love. Javert is cruel and manipulative to all he encounters and lives in a world of black and white. He pursues Valjean with the same white-hot vengeance as Captain Ahab, and is defined by his hatred and disdain for his fellow man. His interactions with other characters throughout the novel are characterized by an abuse of his authority, whether forcing other members of law enforcement into obedience or striking fear into the peasantry in order to extract intelligence. Javert occupies a place on the right side of the law, but the wrong side of humanity.

more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Valjean

[Octafish]

35. Something is very wrong and most people know it.

Recently, I met an attorney recently who serves as a court-appointed advocate for juveniles accused of felonies. She said she has become disillusioned by the workload, meaning that our society is creating young crooks faster than they can be processed by the criminal justice system.

Can we address the root causes of the anti-social behavior through good schools, counselors, Big Brothers/Big Sisters type programs? The attorney felt that we had reached a point where we cannot prosecute, let alone provide psycho-social services to support families, parents and students before they get in trouble with the law.

Before we finished our conversation, I saw what our nation's owners have decided: Let the major cities rot. Let the vast numbers of poor minorities rot. Let their future be even bleaker, whether they rot in jail, uneducated, or on the street, unemployed. It's cheaper than having to do something about it.

[EnlightenedOne]

40. Yep

stick people in slums, put bars and quicki stops on the corner for easy access to carry out liquor & cigarettes, introduce drugs that temporarily put them out of their misery, and then have that same drug destroy you later.

Sickening.

I get our local county's crime report every week - 90% of all the crimes are "possession" of a criminal substance and they are all kids. So, bam, there goes their future. But the Rush Limbaughs and Paris Hiltons of the world escape scott free.

[Obamanaut]

36. Those charges listed were for valid offenses (illegal), weren't they? nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

37. Fines = tax revenues for cities

I'm sure they'd ticket a rich man for urinating in public and who needs a beer on the stoop when you can enjoy a nice Chateau Margeaux '86 on the veranda.

These so-called nuisance laws are little more than revenue streams to prop-up whatever the city thinks it is doing that is so important.

I have to say I've grown real fond of rural living lately.

[Octafish]

38. Where Newt Gingrich Dreams: The Poor Law

Clues about our "feelings for the poor," from "our cousins on the other side of the pond..."

1834 Poor Law (UK)

In 1833 Earl Grey, the Prime Minister, set up a Poor Law Commission to examine the working of the poor Law system in Britain. In their report published in 1834, the Commission made several recommendations to Parliament. As a result, the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed. The act stated that:

(a) no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse;

(b) conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help;

(c) workhouses were to be built in every parish or, if parishes were too small, in unions of parishes;

(d) ratepayers in each parish or union had to elect a Board of Guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission;

(e) the three man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country.

CONTINUED...

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lpoor1834.htm

Property and power really are central to the conservative mindset.

[Enrique]

41. "13-year-old wakes from coma, gets ticket for jaywalking"

I don't know if she's poor, but she is black...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/06/2011-01-
06_takara_davis_13yearold_girl_in_coma_gets_jaywalking_ticket_at_hospital.html

A comatose 13-year-old Las vegas girl who is fighting for her life after being hit by a car has been given a ticket for jaywalking.

Takara Davis's mother received the citation at the hospital earlier this week, KLAS-TV reported.
Recounting what a police officer told her, Kellie Obong, Davis' mom, said giving her the ticket at the hospital was in poor taste.

"He said, 'Takara was jaywalking. She has got to go to court on March 6th,'" Obong said. "If she was jaywalking, then she was jaywalking. But maybe you give it to me at a later time. Don't give it to me when they are rushing her into the operating room."

(...)

[slackmaster]

47. NYC is big on creating and prosecuting people for victimless crimes, and not just poor people

One non-poor example of the city's obsession with persecution: Plaxico Burress.

One of several reasons I could never live there.

[skygazer]

48. Reminds me of a court visit I had

I was arrested (arrested!) for writing a bad check for $15. The store to whom I wrote the check did not bother contacting me to make good on it - they went straight to the police department (New Hampshire - they're nuts in NH).

I too watched the court proceedings with interest. One of the defendants was a woman I'd read about in the paper - she had driven drunk, had a very high blood alcohol reading and had veered out of her lane, plowing into another car, killing its two occupants. She was wealthy, and had served in public government - the judge treated her with consideration and respect. Her case was continued, she left alone and so was not being held in jail.

Then it was my turn. I explained that I had no food, that I had children to feed and that I'd hoped to cover the check within a few days. The judge berated me, treated me like a hardened criminal, explained loftily that breaking the law was not the answer (he didn't offer any other answers), and fined me a considerable amount of money, as well as ordering me to reimburse the store and pay their charge for bouncing the check.

I don't deny I did the deed but I sure resent the difference in treatment between a poor mother trying to feed her kids by committing a crime that caused only slight monetary harm and a "respectable" woman who killed two people.

[markpkessinger]

50. Two incidents that forever changed my view of the NYPD

I have lived in NYC for 29 years. Having grown up in a very small, rural town in Pennsylvania, I was taught to view law enforcement as "the good guys," so when I moved to New York, I carried with me that default view of the NYPD. But I personally witnessed two incidents that forced me to realize that my default view of the essential goodness of the NYPD had been very naive. Both of these incidents occurred during the Giuliani administration, and had I not witnessed them first hand, I might have had a hard time believing they actually occurred.

The first was in 1998, just a few days after the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. That event touched many people very deeply, myself included. Early one afternoon, I got word from a work colleague that there was to be an impromptu vigil in memory of Matthew at 59th & Fifth Avenue (in front of the Plaza Hotel) at around 4:30 p.m. He said that several other folks from the office were going, and invited me to join, which of course I did. My colleague said he thought it would be a pretty small affair, since it was basically just a word-of-mouth thing that had been organized within the previous 24 hours. The vigil's organizer's, as I understand it, expected maybe a couple hundred people to show up. So they, and everyone else, was shocked when something like 5,000 people assembled. Since we were overflowing the plaza area in front of the hotel, some folks decided perhaps the thing to do would be to make a silent march down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park as a memorial to Mr. Shepard and a statement against the violence that took his life. The NYPD quickly stepped in to inform folks that under no circumstances would they be permitted to march, since they hadn't secured a permit in advance. But the crowd's emotions were simply running too high. The police were unprepared for the number of people, but they ultimately agreed to let the march proceed provided it remained on the sidewalk and didn't block traffic on Fifth Avenue. But there were simply too many people to be able to confine them successfully to the sidewalk (although the organizers did try), and the crowd began to spill out onto the avenue as the silent march proceeded. At about 44th Street, the police managed to split the crowd in two, forcing on half to turn right onto 44th Street, in the direction of 6th Avenue. The police told marchers they would be permitted to go down 6th Avenue instead of Fifth. The crowd complied, because they were not there to pick a fight with the police; they merely wanted to complete their silent vigil/march. When about half of us had been herded onto 44th Street, it quickly became apparent that the police had laid a trap. About two thirds of the way down the block, there was a solid line of policemen in full riot gear, along with equestrian units. Once they got the entirety of the rear half of the crowd onto the block, they closed in behind us as well. And then the line of policemen literally charged the crowd. Even the mounted units charted full speed ahead, with horses stepping on people. The policemen on foot and on horseback began indiscriminately swinging nightsticks at the marchers. Many were injured, and many were herded into police vans and arrested. I managed to get out. At the time I remember thinking to myself, "this cannot be happening here, in this country, in 1998." But it happened.

The second incident was some months later. I was riding the subway in the wee hours of the morning. There were only three or four passengers in the car I happened to be riding in, one of whom was a sleeping homeless guy who had stretched out along the length of one of the benches; he had taken his shoes off. At one of the stations, two police officers boarded the car. They went over to the homeless guy and tried to rouse him, but he couldn't immediately be roused. After a few minutes of shaking him, yelling at him, etc., one of the officers took out his nightstick in two hands and swung it, baseball bat style, at the soles of the man's feet. Of course, the man immediately sat bolt upright screaming in pain. By then we were approaching another station, were the officers roughly dragged him from the car (presumably to ticket him). For those not from NYC, you can be ticketed for lying down on the subway benches. But this was 3 a.m. in the morning, when next to no one was riding the train, so it's not like he was preventing anyone from being able to sit. Yet these officers, in a display of wantonly thuggish abuse of power, had to make this poor soul's sad life that much more miserable. Fucking assholes. They did what they did merely because the could. And they knew that in NYC, even if someone were to complain about their abusive behavior, such complaints generally disappear into the bureaucratic neverland that is the Civilian Complaint Review Board. They knew there would be no consequences whatsoever.

[AngryOldDem]

51. Don't jaywalk if you're poor.

That goes double if you're homeless. That can lead to a nice 8-hour stay in the pokey.