{"id":1640,"date":"2011-08-15T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/and-poverty-and-ignorance-shall-swell-the-rich-and-grand-charles-dickens.html"},"modified":"2013-08-30T21:27:21","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T01:27:21","slug":"and-poverty-and-ignorance-shall-swell-the-rich-and-grand-charles-dickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/and-poverty-and-ignorance-shall-swell-the-rich-and-grand-charles-dickens.html","title":{"rendered":"And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand —Charles Dickens"},"content":{"rendered":"You, too, can end up in debtor’s prison, much more easily than you might think.\r\n

\r\n\r\nHow America criminalised poverty:\r\nThe viciousness of state officials to the poor and homeless is breathtaking, trapping them in a cycle of poverty<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n
\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\nPhotograph: Robyn Beck\/EPA<\/small>\r\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\r\nThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the\r\nworking poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed\r\nbeen criminalised in America.\r\n

\r\nPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered\r\nin low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when\r\nyou leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well\r\nhave given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nMaybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again:\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be\r\nbreathtaking. A few years ago, a group called\r\n\r\nFood Not Bombs<\/a>\r\nstarted\r\nhanding out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around\r\nthe nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances\r\nforbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places,\r\nleading to the arrests of several middle-aged white vegans.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nNot just poverty, but generosity, has been criminalized.\r\n

\r\nAnd you could be one missed payment away from not only homelessness,\r\nbut prison:\r\n

\r\nFor the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalisation,\r\nand one is debt. Anyone can fall into debt, and although we pride\r\nourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state,\r\nTexas, people who can’t pay fines for things like expired inspection\r\nstickers may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail.\r\n

\r\nMore commonly, the path to prison begins when one of your creditors has\r\na court summons issued for you, which you fail to honour for one reason\r\nor another, such as that your address has changed and you never received\r\nit. OK, now you’re in “contempt of the court”.\r\n

\r\nOr suppose you miss a payment and your car insurance lapses, and then\r\nyou’re stopped for something like a broken headlight (about $130 for\r\nthe bulb alone). Now, depending on the state, you may have your car\r\nimpounded and\/or face a steep fine \u2013 again, exposing you to a possible\r\ncourt summons. “There’s just no end to it once the cycle starts,” says\r\nRobert Solomon of Yale Law School. “It just keeps accelerating.”\r\n

\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe safety net,
or what remains of it,\r\n
\r\nhas been transformed
into a dragnet.\r\n<\/span>\r\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\r\nThe second \u2013 and by far the most reliable \u2013 way to be criminalised by\r\npoverty is to have the wrong colour skin. Indignation runs high when a\r\ncelebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities\r\nare effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both\r\ndark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you’re “littering”; wear\r\nthe wrong colour T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just\r\nstrolling around in a dodgy neighbourhood can mark you as a potential\r\nsuspect. And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest”.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIf you’re white that won’t save you if you get a payment behind and\r\n\r\nthe wrong judge<\/a>\r\nsummons you.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nToday, exactly the same number of Americans \u2013 2.3 million \u2013 reside in\r\nprison as in public housing. And what public housing remains has become\r\never more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing\r\nnumber of cities, proposed drug tests for residents.\r\nThe safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.\r\n

\r\nIt is not clear whether economic hard times will finally force us to break\r\nthe mad cycle of poverty and punishment. With even the official level of\r\npoverty increasing \u2013 to over 14% in 2010 \u2013 some states are beginning\r\nto ease up on the criminalisation of poverty, using alternative sentencing\r\nmethods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked\r\nup for technical violations like missing court appointments. \r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nBut others,\r\ndiabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the\r\nnumber of “crimes”, but charging prisoners for their room and board,\r\nguaranteeing they’ll be released with potentially criminalising levels\r\nof debt.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nWhich will send them (or you) back to\r\n\r\ndebtor’s prison.<\/a>\r\nBecause that’s what it is, in all but name.\r\n

\r\nWho benefits by all this?\r\n

\r\nAnd poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand,\r\n
\r\nSo, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,\r\n
\r\nOf the fine old English Tory days;\r\n
\r\nHail to the coming time!\r\n
—Charles Dickens, The Fine Old English Gentleman, 1841\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nUnless you make at least\r\n\r\n$27 million a year or have hundreds of millions in assets<\/a>\r\nyou are not in the top 0.1%\r\nof the population that owns and controls most of everything,\r\nand you are not the rich and grand.\r\nYou are much more likely to to end up in debtor’s prison than to reach\r\nthat 0.1%.\r\nWelcome to the 1840s!\r\n

\r\nIs that what you want?\r\n

\r\nIf not, we know what to do.\r\n\r\nEnd the War on Drugs.<\/a>\r\nStart by\r\n\r\nending marijuana prohibition.<\/a>\r\n

\r\nAnd right here in Lowndes County, we don’t need a private prison\r\nrecycling people through debt back to enrich their executives and shareholders.\r\nSpend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.\r\nAnd feed the hungry.\r\n

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