{"id":44916,"date":"2014-09-05T03:12:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T09:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/05\/making-money-from-the-poor-for-fun-and-municipal-profit.html"},"modified":"2014-09-15T14:34:58","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T20:34:58","slug":"making-money-from-the-poor-for-fun-and-municipal-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/05\/making-money-from-the-poor-for-fun-and-municipal-profit.html","title":{"rendered":"Making money from the poor for fun and municipal profit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, I'm all in favor of law and order, and of seeing people who violate the rules that the citizenry (which ostensibly includes them) are appropriate punished (or, better yet, deterred from committing in the first place).<\/p>\n

That said, when it becomes a racket on behalf of the municipal government (esp. when privatization raises it's for-profit head) — when it becomes a major source of their income (because we can't possibly raise taxes for stuff), and so they are incented to do whatever they can to keep the fees and fines and add-ons growing and flowing … then the idea of justice itself is corrupted.<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +Yonatan Zunger<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Note to the reader: Some people have been upset that I'm writing more about issues like these lately, and don't want to hear about things like race in America. If you feel this way, you may continue to be disappointed: these things are important, and we need to talk about them. Consider yourself forewarned: there will be more of this. If this makes you unhappy, you may want to stop reading now. But you probably shouldn't: if you find that this brings up lots of complicated emotions for you, that's a sign that you should read more, not less.<\/i><\/p>\n

I wish that I could give you a short version of this article. But you need to read this, because it's going to be important to our national conversation about many things. Radley Balko has written a deeply researched, detailed article about the system of institutionalized corruption by which municipalities across Missouri are essentially treating their poor — especially their black poor — as a resource to be harvested and consumed to line their own pockets.<\/p>\n

The basic idea is simple and should be familiar to anyone who's watched loansharks at work: they start with a fine for something — say, having expired tags on your car, not having proof of insurance, or (I kid you not) "wearing saggy pants." If you don't have a lawyer (and they've made sure that you won't have one unless you're rich enough to hire one), then you don't simply pay the fine; instead, you have a series of court dates. The message seems to somehow<\/i> have gone out to the public that if you go to one of these dates and can't afford the fine, you'll go to jail — so people miss the dates, and are then arrested for that, instead. Then they get fined for that, as well. As well as fines for not paying the fines, and so on, and so forth. <\/p>\n

It's brutally effective, and it's why you hear so much concern about towns which are 90% black with a police force that's almost entirely white and living in a different town: that police force is, generally, running one of these schemes, together with a local government that's arranging all of the payments. (Guess where all the money for this goes? Hint: it's not the town general fund. At least, not the town where any of the people being imprisoned live.) When the people writing and "enforcing" (I use the term loosely) the laws have no ties to the people being charged under them, you have a sophisticated extortion racket, and no rule of law.<\/p>\n

This article is extensive and detailed, and by the time you get through it, you should have a painfully clear picture of how it works. There are probably two other things you should read in conjunction with it: Ta-Nehisi Coates' now-famous article about similar corruption of the housing system (http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/features\/archive\/2014\/05\/the-case-for-reparations\/361631\/<\/a>), and the book I'm working through now, Douglas A. Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize-winning Slavery by Another Name.<\/i> (http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans\/dp\/0385722702<\/a>) I suspect that these three will give you a very good picture of some of the "hidden corruption," of the darkest form imaginable, which plagues our country to this day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\nHow municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty
\n<\/a>
\nThe uprising in Ferguson was an inevitable reaction to the institutional racism coursing through the area for decades.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey, I'm all in favor of law and order, and of seeing people who violate the rules that the citizenry (which ostensibly includes them) are appropriate punished (or, better yet, deterred from committing in the first place). That said, when it becomes a racket on behalf of the municipal government (esp. when privatization raises it's … Continue reading “Making money from the poor for fun and municipal profit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,528,17,374],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-economic-justice","category-homeland-security","category-money-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28166,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/07\/the-financial-incentive-to-imprison.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":0},"title":"The financial incentive to imprison","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-Jun-12 10:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"When prison populations mean profit, justice takes a back seat.Reshared post from +Bill BloniganThe new Louisiana slave trade: tidbits and lessons from a for-profit prison system\"*Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran's, 13 times China's and 20 times Germany's.*\"\"*A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities*, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44648,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/27\/the-american-business-of-justice.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":1},"title":"The American Business of Justice","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Aug-14 10:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"It sounds like a win-win for everyone: turn over all sorts of judicial system tasks (probation, warrants, monitoring collars, fine collection, probation drug testing) to private companies. Presto! The taxpayer is off the hook, and the \"bad guys\" are getting their punishment.Except that more and more, that's turning into a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132918,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/23\/criminal-justice-for-fun-and-profit-or-at-least-profit.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":2},"title":"Criminal Justice for Fun and Profit. Or, at least, Profit","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Feb-17 10:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone surprised that Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions have decided to reverse the Obama policy to move away from for-profit private prisons. Because what can possibly go wrong with the government signs contracts with private prison companies and they get to decide how to meet their margins -- especially when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38388,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/06\/occasionally-it-appears-there-is-justice.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":3},"title":"Occasionally, it appears, there is justice","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Aug-13 9:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"One small chip against the private prison industry and the corrupting influence of punishment-for-profit.So ... what happens to the private prison contractors with whom he was convicted of racketeering with? \u00a0Will they (also ironically) see any jail time? \u00a0One can but hope. View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42474,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/10\/the-battles-over-municipal-cable.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":4},"title":"The battles over municipal cable","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Jun-14 8:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Colorado city I live in recently passed (76-24) its own SB 152 measure to at least explore to what use the city's already-existing dark fiber might be put to (http:\/\/goo.gl\/qN6Ji8). I don't expect to see any concrete results any time soon, but anything that makes telecomm providers squawk about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28451,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/30\/profit-so-loss.html","url_meta":{"origin":44916,"position":5},"title":"Profit, so loss","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 30-Jun-12 3:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The argument for for-profit prisons (aside from whatever, um, support such corporations provide to legislators who support the move) is that it will Save the State Money.But, of course, running a prison for profit means finding ways to save money. \u00a0By cutting down on guards. On guard qualifications. On training.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44942,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44916\/revisions\/44942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}