This is Important Information From the Southern Center for Human Rights

Debtors' Prisons

Contrary to what many people may believe, there are debtors' prisons throughout the United States where people are imprisoned because they are too poor to pay fines and fees.



The United States Supreme Court in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), held that courts cannot imprison a person for failure to pay a criminal fine unless the failure to pay was “willful.” However, this constitutional commandment is often ignored.



Courts impose substantial fines as punishment for petty crimes as well as more serious ones. Besides the fines, the courts are assessing more and more fees to help meet the costs of the ever-increasing size of the criminal justice system: fees for ankle braclets for monitoring; fees for anger management classes; for drug tests, for crime victims’ funds, for crime laboratories, for court clerks, for legal representation, for various retirement funds, and for private probation companies that do nothing more than collect a check once a month.



People who cannot afford the total amount assessed may be allowed to pay in monthly installments, but in many jurisdictions those payments must be accompanied by fees to a private probation company that collects them. A typical fee is $40 per month. People who lose their jobs or encounter unexpeced family hardships and are unable to maintain payments may be jailed without any inquiry into their ability to pay or the willfulness of their failure to pay.



There are more fees for those in jails or prisons. There are high costs for telephone calls. Fees are charged fees for medical services. A new trend is “room and board” fees in prisons and jails. Ora Lee Hurley spent nearly a year at the Georgia Department of Corrections, Atlanta Diversion Center due to her inability to pay a $705 fine from a 15-year-old drug conviction because she was charged for staying there. A court had ordered Ms. Hurley imprisoned until her fine was paid. While held at the Diversion Center, Ms. Hurley was employed full-time at a restaurant which sent her paycheck directly to the Department of Corrections. Although Ms. Hurley never missed a day of work and earned over $7,000, the Department took nearly every penny of her earnings. Left with only $23 per month to buy food, toiletries, and pay her fine, Ms. Hurley was being confined in perpetuity. She was released only after the Center filed a habeas petition on her behalf. For a copy of the habeas petition, click here. To view the Atlanta Journal Constitution article click here.


The Center Ends Jail Fees for Pre-Trial Detainees

In some cases, jails have even charged people room and board fees for people detained on charges but not convicted of any crime. For seventeen years, the Clinch County Jail in Homerville charged those in its custody a daily room and board fee. Even though Georgia law did not authorize – and in fact prohibited – such charges, the Clinch County Sheriff charged inmates $18 per day. Many people were too poor to pay the fees upon their release. The Sheriff and his deputies required them to sign notes promising to pay the fees in installments, or return to jail. On several occasions, the Sheriff charged people thousands of dollars, failing to return the money even when criminal charges were dismissed. A lawsuit filed by the Center, ultimately settled, required the Sheriff to return the illegal fees. For a copy of the Complaint, click here. For a copy of the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, click here. For a copy of newspaper articles related to the case, click here. To hear a report by National Public Radio on Clinch County Jails, click here.


The Center ends Debtors' Prison in Gulfport, Mississippi

The Municipal Court in Gulfport, Mississippi was one such court. In an effort to crack down on people who owed misdemeanor fines, the City of Gulfport employed a fine collection task force. The task force trolled through predominately African-American neighborhoods, rounding up
people who had outstanding court fines. After arresting and jailing them, the City of Gulfport processed these people through a court proceeding at which no defense attorney was present or even offered. Many people were jailed for months after hearings lasting just seconds. While the City collected money, it also packed the jail with hundreds of people who couldn’t pay, including people who were sick, physically disabled, and/or limited by mental disabilities. SCHR filed suit to stop these illegal practices. For a copy of the Complaint, Tclick here. For related news coverage, click here.


Other financial distortions

Debtors prisons are but one example of financial incentives that have a distorting effect on the criminal justice system. Criminal justice policies - how many prison beds to build, whether to arrest someone or cite them, what sentences to impose - should be primarily concerned with making us more safe. But the profit motive is increasingly distorting the system.



Many counties throughout the South, for example, are committing scarce dollars to building larger jails in anticipation of securing a lucrative contract with the federal government to house detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the United States Marshals Service or even prisoners from other counties or other states. As another example, the design of work release programs - something that should be focused on developing skills and reducing recidivism - is often driven primarily by an interest in collecting as much moneyas possible from the prison er-workers. The privatization of probation, imprisonment, and other parts of the criminal justice system create incentives for expanding the criminalization of poor people.



Financial distrortions in the criminal justice system include the practice of funding government slush funds by adding to someone's sentence. By making it more difficult for people to take care of their basic needs, these additional financial obligations compromise rather than improve public safety.


Southern Center for Human Rights | 83 Poplar St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30303 | p.404.688.1202 | f.404.688.9440

An Activist Died this Week, Native of Prattville, Alabama

Dan Houser of Prattville died this week in a Chicago nursing home. In 1967, Houser was associated with Stokeley Carmichael and brought him to Prattville, Alabama. I blogged about this previously. Here is the link.

Interview With James Baldwin

I was watching a program with Condoleeza Rice yesterday, and her image has been at the forefront in the media these days, and as I watched her on the television I began to wonder how she lives with herself. How does she bring into agreement her Blackness and her loyalty to the Bush administration? When she has someone to pull a hot comb through her hair to straighten the kinks out, does she not ever think of the millions of Black people who suffer due to the policies that she upholds? Does she never feel any connection to the pain that Black people feel? Now, as I have said before, Condoleeza Rice is from Birmingham, and came out of the same period as my mother--and not too long after Angela Davis came out of the same area. She was around when the 16th Street Baptist Church got bombed and those little girls got killed. Did she feel nothing?

Now, in an interview she gave recently, she stated that she was not very much influenced by the Civil Rights movement, that during that time period she was running around in pigtails and going to the ice skating rink and having parties, so she was not aware and it had no affect on her. What an odd statement, and odd to consider-- as this is not uncommon of middle class Black children of the time--they could be oblivious--some were, however, including my mother and millions of others, they did not grow up to become neocons and they certainly didn't become mouthpieces for the Bush administration in its total lack of respect for humanity. What happened with her? Is she an extreme example of the effects of assimilation? Thse thoughts plague my mind from time to time as I watch her movements and her body language on television, as I listen to her speak--and I can tell that the words that she speaks are not firmly connected to her self-hood--and I just wonder, is it so easy to wake up in the morning knowing that you have sold your every last ounce of integrity simply to move up into the good graces of the white male power structure? I think it is too terribly past the time to castrate this goddamned phallus.

I just finished watching an interview with Dr. James Bevel( who is a good man). Alas, one thing that I must comment upon is the glowing picture of the Civil Rights struggle and the legacy of the 60s that many such as him wish to, want to, and do paint. He stated that he was so "joyful that the Civil Rights struggle came about and ended with no bloodshed." Just because no Black person picked a brick and didn't lay out some white man( although I know that some did) doesn't mean that there was no bloodshed. How can you look past Emmett Till, Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman, Medgar Evers--- and those are only a HANDFUL out of HUNDREDS who died JUST IN THAT DECADE. Not to mention the thousands of people lynched and beaten and tortured and harrassed and intimidated by white men in the decades between the end of slavery and 1965-1970. God help us all. Alas, yes Johnson did sign the goddamned Voting Rights Act, but HE WAS NOT YOUR FRIEND. I just dont know what goes through these people's mind as they try to sanctify--no deify people like Johnson. I am not saying he was satan-- but he was a white man and his agenda simply included pacifying your ass before all hell broke loose. If ANY from that era was even CLOSEST to being a person of integrity and who might have been sincere in his dedication to the acheivement of dignity for ALL people it was Robert Kennedy-- and they killed him. Indeed, the Civil Rights struggle did not END people simply just got tired. There are still things that need to be done. Another thought, related but not quite the same-- something to think about-- Take a look at the Women of Brewster Place --and the ending scene where they tear down that wall to at last free themselves and get rid of their oppression-- this is what needs to be done. I think that scene holds a lot of meaning and is something that should be thought about by everyone who cares anything about the struggle for human dignity and integrity.