‘Cash-register’ justice must end
Toward the end of the Obama administration, the Justice Department called on judges to end the cashregister system of justice that had taken root across the country. In what is a clearly unconstitutional practice, people in localities nationwide were being sent to jail solely because they were too poor to pay the fines and fees that municipalities increasingly rely on for revenue.
Some states heeded the advice, and progress was made. Now, a report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights shows what the Trump Justice Department needs to do to keep the momentum up for reform.
The Obama administration brought this issue out into the open in 2015 during its investigation of policing in the racially troubled city of Ferguson, Mo., which exploded in violence in 2014 after a police officer shot and killed a black teenager named Michael Brown. Investigators found that the city’s policing tactics were both discriminatory and driven by a city budget that relied heavily on fines and fees associated with minor violations.
In a quest for revenue, Ferguson officers trapped poor and minority citizens in a Kafka-esque cycle that began with fines they could not pay and led to crippling financial penalties, revoked driver’s licenses, jail time, lost jobs and ruined lives. The investigation showed that municipalities had essentially re-created debtor prisons, violating the Constitution by punishing people for being poor.
Last year, the Justice Department followed up its Ferguson report with a letter asking court systems nationwide to be vigilant against similar policies. It explained that the courts had an obligation to ask people about their ability to pay before jailing them for nonpayment and were also bound to consider alternatives like community service or extended payment plans. The department also awarded grants to state courts in five states to help develop new approaches to fine and fee enforcement.
According to the Civil Rights Commission report, Texas will use some of its grant for an automated system that judges can use to determine inability to pay. Beyond that, a national task force financed by the Justice Department created a blueprint for state reforms, with model laws and ideas about how to prevent local governments and traffic courts from lapsing into unconstitutional practices. …
Unfortunately, most states have done little or nothing to reform justice systems that clearly violate the Constitution. Judges need to keep pressing this point, and the Justice Department has an obligation to help.