Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xxvi, 244 pages; 25 cm

Summary

1. "As a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony Messenger has spent years in county and municipal courthouses documenting how poor Americans are convicted of minor crimes and then saddled with exorbitant fines and fees. If they are unable to pay, they are often sent to prison, where they are then charged a pay-to-stay bill, in a cycle that soon creates a mountain of debt that can take years to pay off. These insidious penalties are used to raise money for broken local and state budgets, often overseen by for-profit companies, and it is one of the central issues of the criminal justice reform movement. In the tradition of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, Messenger has written a call to arms, shining a light on a two-tiered system invisible to most Americans. He introduces readers to three single mothers caught up in this system: living in poverty in Missouri, Georgia, and South Carolina, whose lives are upended when minor offenses become monumental financial catastrophes. As these women struggle to clear their debt and move on with their lives, readers meet the dogged civil rights advocates and lawmakers fighting by their side to create a more equitable and fair court of justice. Tony Messenger exposes injustice that is agonizing and infuriating in its mundane cruelty, as he champions the rights and dignity of some of the most vulnerable Americans"--

Alternative title

1. How America criminalizes the poor in the name of justice

Subject

1. Poverty > Government policy > United States
2. Poor > Government policy > United States
3. Criminal justice, Administration of > United States
4. Imprisonment > United States
5. Equality > United States
6. Civil rights
7. Poverty > legislation & jurisprudence
8. Prisoners > legislation & jurisprudence
9. Criminal Law > economics
10. Financial Stress
11. Civil Rights
12. Legislation as Topic
13. Pauvreté > Politique gouvernementale > États-Unis
14. Pauvres > Politique gouvernementale > États-Unis
15. Justice pénale > Administration > États-Unis
16. Emprisonnement > États-Unis
17. Droits de l'homme
18. civil rights
19. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General
20. Criminal justice, Administration of
21. Poor > Government policy
22. Poverty > Government policy
23. Administration of criminal justice > United States
24. United States
25. United States

Genre/Form

1. Missouri Authors.
2. Case studies.

Contents

1. By the numbers -- The poverty penalty -- Going to court -- The arrest -- Taxation by citation -- No sale of justice -- Failure to pay -- Debtors' prison -- Pay to stay -- The key to the jailhouse door -- Judges vs. judges -- Path to freedom -- The courthouse -- The capitol -- The Koch brothers meet the ACLU -- A tale of two letters -- Poverty is relative.

Owning institution

1. Columbia University Libraries

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.