Some Financially Strapped Courts Lean On Bill Collectors To Help Fund Operations By Squeezing The Poor

From the American Civil Liberties Union's Blog Of Rights:

• Across the country, cash-strapped cities and counties are throwing poor defendants in jail for failing to pay legal debts that they can never hope to manage. On Monday, the New York Times told the story of Gina Ray, whose $179 speeding ticket mushroomed into $3,170 in fines and fees and 40 days in jail when she couldn’t afford to pay it. Gina is one of many swept up in America’s new debtors’ prisons, a growing problem nationwide.
  
  Also this week, the ABA Journal told the story of the Philadelphia courts’ aggressive efforts to collect unpaid fines and fees, many of which are decades old. Ameen Muqtadir was billed nearly $41,000 for two failures to appear in court dating back to 1991 and 1997—even though he’d been incarcerated at the time of each hearing.
  
  Meanwhile, Hakim Waliyyudin spent 12 days in jail while he raised the money to post a $1,000 bond with the court; after the criminal charges against him were dismissed, the court clerk told him that he owed another $9,000 plus $1,500 in collection fees because of a missed court date.
  
  Although a free attorney from Community Legal Services ultimately convinced the court to waive the judgment and collection charges against Hakim, many other indigent defendants around the country face further jail time when they cannot pay court-ordered fines and fees.

For more, see Courts Should Stop Jailing People for Being Poor.

See also:

• The New York Times: Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation,
• ABA Journal: Get Out of Jail—But Not Free: Courts Scramble to Fill Their Coffers by Billing Ex-Cons,
• American Civil Liberties Union: In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons.

Thanks to Deontos for the heads-up on the stories.