Making poor people go to jail if they cannot pay court fines

We are such a mean country. Or, at least we are here in Colorado. That is the conclusion a visitor to Colorado would possibly make if he or she read the front page article in today's Denver Post. We are making people go to jail if they don't pay court fines!

Mark Silverman, the Director of the Denver chapter of the ACLU, says we are discriminating against poor people. Post writer Christopher Osher quotes Silverman:

It doesn't get the fine paid. It wastes resources. It worsens poverty. It unfairly creates a two-tiered justice system."

Not only that, but it appears Colorado cities are violating federal and state laws:

A 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that jailing poor people for not paying court-related fines violates the constitution's equal protection clause.

In 1987, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that jailing an indigent defendant for failure to pay shouldn't occur because it punishes the poor for being poor. The Colorado Constitution also states that "no person shall be imprisoned for debt."

But in nine of the largest 16 cities in Colorado, the ACLU found that judges routinely issue "pay-or-serve" warrants against those too poor to pay court fines. In such cases, individuals are given a stark option: Pay up in cash or pay off fines by serving time in jail.

Not only that, but Osher also asserts,

Colorado courts don't apply consistent standards on how to deal with those too poor to pay. A judge in one county might send a defendant to jail for weeks, while across the county line the same person could get a break if he or she relies on food stamps.

In some areas, attempts to pay are ignored and aren't sufficient to keep the poor from going to jail.

Although many cities in Colorado implement the pay-or-serve policy, Denver does not:

Not all jurisdictions engage in the practice though. Denver County Court judges voted in June 2012 to stop issuing arrest warrants for failure to pay, deciding the practice was ineffective and costly. They estimated the change would cut jail costs by about $1 million annually. A collection agency has helped the court increase its collection of fines and fees.

Denver County Court Presiding Judge John Marcucci said

we were spending money to arrest them and spending money to incarcerate them after they were arrested, and we were losing out on the ability to collect fines and costs."

Courts can garnish wages to pay fines over time or require fines to be paid before an individual can renew a driver's license, he said.

Although Osher has written a very one-sided article, including citing the experiences of three people who were jailed because they did not have the money to pay, he does raise some good points, in my humble blogger opinion. To me the best points he raises are the failure to use collection agencies or garnish wages to collect the fines over time, and the subsequent unnecessary jail and police costs.

It is a heck of a privilege to live in this beautiful state. With privileges come responsibilities. Not everybody is poor because of bad decisions and choices, but we would not be wise to have one set of laws for the poor and one set for the not poor.

What do you think?