vincentML
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Joined: 10/31/2009
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ARTICLE
Ferguson, Missouri was called out not too long ago by the Justice Department for running a protection racket on its citizens, mostly poor people of color. The police would issue a ticket for some minor traffic infraction with a high price tag: $302 for a single manner of walking incident; $531 for high Grass and Weeds; $777 for resisting arrest; $793 for failure to obey; and $527 for Failure to Comply.
If the citizen could not pay the fine in full a hearing date was set by the municipal court. At the hearing a payment deadline was imposed. Failure to meet the deadline resulted in more fines, added fees and costs, more deadlines, and jail time, then release and more deadlines; the citizen was caught in a penal cycle. . . in jail for poverty; the American equivalent of a poor house gaol.
One woman’s car was parked crookedly. She was given a parking ticket which levied a fine of $151. She was not able to pay in full. During the next seven years she spent six days in jail, incurred more fines and fees, and paid $550. She still owes the city $541.
And here’s a police captain, in March 2012, writing to the Ferguson city manager to boast of record collections to the tune of $235,000 for the month. “The [court clerk] girls have been swamped all day with a line of people paying off fines today,” he wrote the city official. “Since 9:30 this morning there hasn’t been less than 5 people waiting in line and for the last three hours 10 to 15 people at all times.” The city manager was, again, overjoyed at the revenues bolstering city coffers, lauding the police and court staff for their “great work.”
[SNIP]
And when people couldn’t pay, they were arrested. Around 21,000 people live in Ferguson. But in 2013, the city’s municipal court issued a staggering 32,975 arrest warrants for minor offenses, according to Missouri state records.
In 2014 the city collected $2.3 million from citations. Total revenues were more than $19 million.
In 2012 the population of Ferguson was 67% African-American. The people arrested were 93% African-American. From 2008 – 2012 one neighborhood had a poverty rate of 13.1%. The others had poverty rates that fell between 19.8 and 33.3% according to census data. There were five census tracts.
In Ferguson Police and Courts waged a financial persecution against its indigent population.
Other cities in St. Louis County have been accused of similar behavior.
When Michael Brown was fatally shot in 2014 by a white cop there were 50 white and 3 black police officers on the Ferguson Force.
Police corruption is not new but Ferguson is one story that tells me the American Justice System remains broken. I don’t see the substantive fairness called for in the Constitution. I wonder if anyone was fired?
Your thoughts?
< Message edited by vincentML -- 3/14/2017 12:35:17 AM >
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vML
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~ MLK Jr.
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