LEGAL AID
At the bottom of the CPN’s illustration of the Slippery Slope of Poverty is Justice System Involvement. That is certainly NOT to imply that being poor leads to criminality. It does mean that people who must navigate disparities in, and barriers to, financial stability, basic needs, and mitigating services are more vulnerable to justice system involvement. Few governmental systems consider the limitations imposed by poverty or the effect of low educational attainment on a person’s ability to afford representation, comprehend the collateral consequences of a decision, or meet requirements of an order, compliance measure, or payment of a fee. The results can be a discriminatory processes and even disparate acts that go unchallenged and un-championed.
The Connection
On July 14, 2020, the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center reported that our state’s revenue generated from fees and fines had surpassed corporate and personal income tax revenue. As such, when an anomaly hits that impacts the supply end of a fee-based system, such as the 2020 pandemic, agencies can struggle with operational sustainability. The Justice Center went further to show how “this shifts the responsibility for revenue generation onto the sector of the community with least ability to afford the burden.”
The Washington Post featured the words and wisdom of a Duke Law Professor, Brandon L. Garrett, who described “where lawmakers erected toll booths in the courts, with dozens of fines and fees designed to extract millions from the most minor criminal cases, like traffic cases.” He and his colleagues determined in a study period spanning 30 years and 1.72 million cases, there were 650,000 cases that resulted in unpaid debt.
Across the country, unpaid court fees can result in a spectrum of penalties including jail time, loss of driver’s license, as well as more fines and fees. Any one of these penalties can impact access to work and those concrete basic needs that are the Social Determinants of Health. The most telling statistic Mr. Garrett highlighted was around the demographics. “In North Carolina, two thirds of the population is white, but about two thirds of those with unpaid fines and fees are minorities. This is exactly why, for low-income community members, the scales of justice are disproportionately weighted against the successful navigation out of poverty. It is a disparate act – the resultant of a systems policies and practices that appear neutral but disproportionately impact a protected group.
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In other cases, the supportive services that were designed to help people find the exit to their circumstances becomes the barrier to upward mobility and/or the catalyst for criminalization. Public assistance systems are complex and riddled with regulations, eligibility limitations, and compliance requirements. Failure to comprehend the application, can lead to consequences and assignment of penalties that perpetuate cycles of debt and create disparities in needed resources. Peter B. Edelman in his article Criminalization of Poverty: Much More to Do paints a bleak picture for low-income community members, and by default people of color, that fall victim to intersecting public systems such as education, housing, welfare, and mental health that set the stage for punitive fees, fines, harsh enforcement, and the criminalization of poverty. Examples may include, but are not limited to:
The school to prison pipeline represents a disproportionate number low-income, minority children and children with disabilities who are sent to court in lieu of utilizing school disciplinary practices
Local ordinances against vagrancy and public sleeping complicated by scarcities in affordable housing leaves homeless at risk for incarceration
Invoking welfare fraud where there was a deficient knowledge-base about benefit rules and consequences
Inadequate, and barriers to, mental health services that lead to a spectrum of legal impacts for people with disabilities and mental health crises
Allegations of child neglect and abuse that are founded only in financial crisis and lack of resources
Inability to afford legal assistance and counseling
Assignment of fees and fines for lack of payment without consideration of the person’s ability to pay
Low educational attainment and/or lack of knowledge base needed to navigate the complex systems of public support
Collateral consequences that restrict employment, housing, education, voting and even access to food when the debt to society has been paid
Fines, fees, harsh enforcement, and cash bail