Trump's War on the Poor/Minorities continues

[_Xenophon]

Doc, you're correct I haven't suggested anything directly(to be fair, you seem unwilling to acknowledge when people have if it isn't "original" even though your one real suggestion was one that is already being done), I've been away from the board and just now getting back to posting so here goes.

I think first and foremost it is important to remember that this is a super complicated topic and it is asinine to suggest that acknowledging that up front is somehow giving up.

I appreciate and agree with your idea of a progressive fine system. I think taking a good hard look at zoning/building codes is really important for all cities, there are a lot of ridiculous and burdensome rules that make no sense. I supported the Obama-era DOJ recommendation of not jailing people because they couldn't pay fines and am displeased to see it removed. I typically believe that America has a fetish with incarceration and we need to work more towards practical solutions and rehabilitation, not just throwing people in prison as a first resort. This would include expanded community service opportunities, even some that are less common (e.g. volunteering with youth/elderly, teaching a skill the offender might have for free).

It is no secret that the wealthy have a considerably easier time in our justice system (I have shared countless studies/examples of this phenomenon). If our system is truly intended to be blind and balanced, that has to be addressed.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Xenophon,

So the solution is to place a sort of lien against a fine or do you just let 'em go scofflaw? I think I could be down with a lien. Perhaps a sensible garnishment of wages or welfare collected at a low rate until the fine is paid could work. I think community activists could get on neighborhood councils and petition through their elected representatives to rework the fine structure. It's a political issue and has to be treated as such.

I certainly don't believe we should abandon civil enforcement of rules because of social injustice, though. That doesn't make any sense.

- Doc

[_Xenophon]

I certainly don't believe we should abandon civil enforcement of rules because of social injustice, though. That doesn't make any sense.
- Doc

No reasonable person I know wants to abandon enforcement and I apologize if what I suggested sounded like that, that is some serious anarchist stuff.

Yes though, sensible payment options is another good facet to this, allowing for hybrids is also good, part fine and part community service. I won't claim to be an expert on what the specific structure for it would look like but I'm sure it is variable by offense but I don't think it would be a terrible step to at least start with systems already in place and judge their effectiveness, we aren't really talking about reinventing the wheel here.

Some other corrective actions that should be looked at as a piece to the whole issue is examining how legal representation negatively impacts those at lower income levels. It is no secret that those at lower incomes typically receive harsher sentences for identical crimes and court assigned attorneys (God bless them) often don't help in this regard. They are generally overworked and lack the resources necessary to provide the same kind of defense paid attorneys typically have. Some may say that is just a "tough cookies" kind of scenario for the poor, but it definitely is a very unbalanced portion of the criminal justice system.

ETA: Here is a piece in the Atlantic about it. It even does a good job explaining how sometimes these types of sliding fines can get to be pretty extreme for the super wealthy. But the fact that the rich are complaining now is kind of the point right (we want fines to deter everyone). It also links to a study that shows that the rich typically drive more recklessly, a nice juxtaposition to Mad Majax's Memphis Mayhem upthread (PDF Warning).

[_EAllusion]

If only someone had already linked that Atlantic article...

[Guest]

If only someone had already linked that Atlantic article...

Oh snap, I missed that. Credit where credit is due then, sir.

[_EAllusion]

I suspect Bernie Sanders, notorious bane of socialists, wouldn't exactly characterize supporting prorating civil fines based on ability to pay as a communist plot to tear down the social order through a proxy race war. But then again, neither would have DocCam less than a day ago. Way back then, he brought up the idea and said he liked it.

Hit dog hollers! Poor EA. Can't form an original thought if his life depended on it. Still waitin' on those solutions, brother.

- Doc

I offered multiple examples of policy responses I agree with ranging from compelled community service, to prohibiting the criminal justice system from being funded with proceeds from fines and court fees, to prorating of fines, to eliminating some classes of fines. A lot of what I agree with is what what the Sessions DoJ just rescinded. That's what this thread is about.

Contrary to what you said, I gave some specific examples, including a detailed story on fines issued for transforming lawns into gardens. After your false claim is pointed out, you revert into criticizing what I said because it isn't original enough. The quality of the policies a person endorses isn't determined by how original they are, though. That's ad hominem. It's worse than that, though, as a single person coming up with totally original ideas is far less likely to be successful something found in the sum-total of already generated thought.

This all seems to be in bad faith in any case as the idea I've spent the most time defending in the thread is the unoriginal one you were the first person to reference positively.

[_Maxine Waters]

Rich people drive worse than poor people? This defies common sense and my life experience for the most part. I usually judged poverty by Memphis people who use duct tape to patch their busted car window a and door frames.

But I wouldn't put any aggressive driving maneuver past uber selfish people like Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee so perhaps there are bad rich drivers as well, but I thankfully haven't had to share the road with Sheila Jackson Lee yet.

[_Maxine Waters]

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

Wow, judging from the way people in Colombia drive they must all be billionaires according to this article. I guess all the poverty I saw there was just an illusion, or an EAllusion. Riding your motorcycle at 40mph down a crowded sidewalk, weaving a large bus in and out of a narrow double laned mountain road, and literally running over a stop sign on top of wet pavement to get where you're going a few seconds sooner, is actually courteous and ethical behavior. I had it all wrong.

[_EAllusion]

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

Wow, judging from the way people in Colombia drive they must all be billionaires according to this article. I guess all the poverty I saw there was just an illusion, or an EAllusion. Riding your motorcycle at 40mph down a crowded sidewalk, weaving a large bus in and out of a narrow double laned mountain road, and literally running over a stop sign on top of wet pavement to get where you're going a few seconds sooner, is actually courteous and ethical behavior. I had it all wrong.

Wealth is associated with reduced capacity for empathy or concern for others, which is associated greed-driven unethical behavior. It wouldn't be a surprising finding.

Remember how you theorized that black people are inherently prone to criminality because they are genetically predisposed to lack empathy? Imagine that, only instead of genetics the issue is how people on average react to relative abundance of resource.

And that's before you get to the mundane fact that you're less deterred from speeding if there is no financial consequence for you than if there is. That's the main justification for having fines for speeding in the first place.

[_Maxine Waters]

And that's before you get to the mundane fact that you're less deterred from speeding if there is no financial consequence for you than if there is

Yes the financial consequence for speeding is a lower percentage of the handful of billionaires who speed or in the case of Congresswoman Jackson Lee, browbeats her intern staffers to speed. But that's still more than nothing that people pay in Colombia. I never saw a ticket given there and they had about the same ability to pay as people in the inner city here in the US. It's no coincidence that American road rules are becoming more like roads in South America. It's one of the ways in which we're becoming a Latin American country. Getting rid of or making fines for wreckless driving behavior a nominal/trivial amount looks like an inevitable step backward as our demographics change.