ACLU files class action lawsuit against Mississippi debtors prison system

[Liberal_in_LA]

the fines were for other traffic violations dating back to 2013. At that time, Kennedy says she told her probation officers – a private company called Judicial Corrections Services Inc (JCS) – that she was so poor there was no way she could find the money.

She worked as a cleaner at the baseball field in downtown Biloxi, earning less than $9,000 a year – well below the federal poverty level for a single person, let alone a mother of two dependent children. Her plea fell on deaf ears: a JCS official told her that unless she paid her fines in full, as well as a $40 monthly fee to JCS for the privilege of having them as her probation officers, she would go to jail – an arrest warrant was duly secured to that effect through the Biloxi municipal court

Nor was Kennedy’s inability to pay her fines as a result of poverty taken into account by the police officer when he stopped her in July, she said. Discovering the arrest warrant, he promptly put her in handcuffs and took her to a Gulfport jail.

There she was told that unless she came up with all the money – by now the figure had bloated as a result of JCS’s monthly fees to $1,000 – she would stay in jail. And so she did. Kennedy spent the next five days and nights in a holding cell.

_____

Kennedy is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuitlodged on Wednesday with a federal district court in Gulfport against the city of Biloxi, its police department, the municipal court system and the private probation company JCS. The filing, drawn up by the American Civil Liberties Union, claims that the agencies collectively conspired to create a modern form of debtors’ prison as a ruse to extract cash from those least able to afford it – the city’s poor.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/pay-or-go-jail-how-mississippi-town-resurrected-debtors-prison

[rhett o rick]

1. And where the hell is the DoJ? nm

[hifiguy]

2. Probably prosecuting medical MJ dispensaries

or busily looking in another direction. One must have priorities.

[rhett o rick]

3. Yep, helping fill the prisons with member of the 99%, but not the 1%. nm

[CatWoman]

4. DOJ mind readers now?

How does anyone know, prior to the lawsuit, that DOJ was aware of this situation?

This sounds like the same crap pulled in Ferguson, and it took Michael Brown's death to shine light on these practices.

Hopefully this lawsuit will do the same.

[rhett o rick]

5. First of all, I don't know, but I would hope those involved would have contacted the DoJ.

But maybe they didn't. But it still seems like the DoJ is hiding in a closet waiting to be forced to take actions. Just my observation.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. It's the whole ...capitalized "J" thing that bothers me.

as in "DoJ"

Standing for "Justice" I presume.

Since when has that particular department actually been interested in real Justice?

Oh sure, they do some occasional good, but really? Seriously? Is ANYONE with an ounce of sense and the ability to keep up with current events unaware of this kind of crap?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, in the remotest of remote hopes that this idea might be tweeted, YouTubed, social mediaerized or what ever;

Profit trumps the public good in this country.

Full fucking stop.

[mountain grammy]

7. So true, so true. For every occasional success

there's thousands of failures. If there was truly a Department of Justice, there wouldn't be rampant INjustice.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. .....

[rhett o rick]

9. I agree with your sentiments and I also don't think that Black Lives Matter to this Admin's DoJ

which is very interesting if not ironic.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. When I was born, Eisenhower was President......

And my father worked for the CIA, so I followed the workings of the government with a bit of a jaundiced eye, to say the least, and as such, I have learned, looking back over the subsequent administrations that the president is a cog in a massive machine and that machine is made up of career bureaucrats that run EVERYTHING.

It isn't the building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that's important in this regard, it's the one across the street.

[rhett o rick]

11. I agree. When someone becomes president the NSA/CIA have a sit down and tell them how things

really run. "You can mess with the NSA/CIA personnel and programs at your own risk."

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. It is a little known fact, that in the modern era,

the day after it is clear there is a "President Elect". that person is flown to Washington where the REAL oaths of office take place, usually 2 months before the Inauguration. The President Elect must attain national and high level security clearance so that he/she can get regular/daily updates on issues of importance.

It is then, in my opinion, and to agree with your "Sit Down" idea, that the limits of what the president can and can not do are established.

"Look...you are going to live in one of the nicest houses in the country, fully staffed to meet virtually every desire you and your family might have. A world class chef, 24/7 attention to the smallest detail, the worlds finest and most renowned private jet (Air Force-1), a private retreat at your beck and call (Camp David) and the ability to do almost anything you want EXCEPT.....



All the stuff you want to do but can't do, like make REAL CHANGES FOR THE BETTER OF HUMANITY."

The President can only do so much. Those that have tried to make massive changes in the way things operate were both killed in very public ways. That impression is substantial.

[rhett o rick]

13. Some will say that that there are probably not extreme life/death threats involved.

I would hope a true liberal would be open-minded enough to keep that possibility open, but here is a more subtle method that might sound more plausible. The NSA/CIA can merely say that the nation's security is the most important thing and that if the President decides to make drastic changes, he/she will be completely responsible for any/all incidents. For someone as intelligent as Obama, he'd get the message. For example, should something like the Boston Marathon incident happen, it would be good if the public didn't know that the president had changed personnel or eliminated important programs.

[hifiguy]

14. Agreed. The "Deep State" or Permanent Government

that emerged after WW II (founded by John Foster and Allen Dulles, who consulted extensively with Germans they brought over after the war who had, shall we say, rather dubious political beliefs) has destroyed representative democracy in the name of protecting and advancing three sets of interests: those of the MIC and spy agencies, those of the plutocrats, and its own.

Which is not surprising when one understands the background of the Dulles brothers and other members of their class, which by and large approved of the Nazi state and saw it as the bright and shining wave of the future. They were exceedingly unhappy that FDR went to war against the Austrian Corporal. The US right had been extremely active in financing the people who financed Hitler's rise to power. As a matter of fact, Prescott Bush was closely connected to a number of industrialists and financiers who backed the NSDAP.

[hifiguy]

15. That talk has been given to every Democrati president of the last 50 years.

They don't even bother talking to the Repigs, who stand for all the same things they do and have ZERO interest in making the lot of the majority of the citizenry any better.

I am now more convinced than ever that Allen Dulles was the man who gave the final approval for the hit on John Kennedy.