Hostility policies, problem or solution? By Mar Carbonell

Nowadays, some of the most discussed matters are: inequality, crisis of democracy. In this text, in particular, we will focus on the increasing inequality and on the poverty criminalization, such in state bodies and the society itself which understand poverty as a rather well-deserved situation to the ones who are in such vulnerable position. In the current crisis we find that more and more people below the poverty line and suffer extreme poverty. This means that people are forced to seek help from family or resort to foundations or organizations engaged in charity because they can’t be cared for by social services from the state. Therefore, we are faced with a problematic economic, legal and juridical but also image as the media play an essential role in the criminalization of poverty. First of all, it is important to identify why these inequalities are possible. Professors agree that the increase of inequality is the result of both the downturn wage and the number of active workers, as well as, assets increase (V. Navarro, 2014).

It is well known that life conditions for poor and middle class have become harder, in contrast to private finances (Fundació Jaume Bofill, 2012). Furthermore, the awareness that the 39% of the worldwide wealth belongs to a 1% of the total population (R. Frank, 2013). It is a fact that while knowledge inequality has decreased, the income inequality has strengthened throughout the last decade. These inequalities have been nourished by the elite need, taking advantage of the workers disagreements and it is just then when the hostility policies play its game. The confrontation amongst people, who share the same status, is the main feature of this kind of policies, forcing the gap to get bigger and bigger in order to stigmatize the vulnerable ones, cutting them out from society. A neoliberal and conservative ideology is used to claim the evidence of the abuse done by some collectives, on what belongs to everybody. Moreover, there is not social injustice but personal failure which leads to the family unit under scarcity basis and depending on others. As per this message, the state does not feel responsible as the risk is assumed by the citizen who does not have the right to obtain any protection nor support from the state.

Poverty criminalization arises from liberal policies run by both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, which have been adopted by governments to accept austerity. This culpable speech justifies the establishment actions as they want to be believed that the reason for such actions is greatly due to disasters which, of course, nobody is responsible for, like they were natural disasters where resignation seems to be the only alternative. But these cannot be the mechanics of acceptance as Welfare State in which we live in. It is not feed on lowering the social status, on the contrary, it is based on the social promotion without gender, age, origin, believes or aims distinction. This is the reason why the meritocracy cannot become a way of inequality nor an excuse to obstruct the equal footing and the access to protection nets. It is important to understand that abandon citizens suffer devastating psychological effects and generates common discomfort in the population.

This type of policy being carried out is not doing any good to the society. On the contrary, it is becoming a problem in the short term is having disastrous effects that can evoke a society in a social crisis of great magnitude. Therefore, in no time we consider the policies of hostility as a solution. One of the alternatives to these policies is to allocate more financial and material resources for the third sector. This way you can deal with the needs of citizens and prevent more people are placed under the poverty line and suffer social exclusion and criminalization of poverty. We have also prioritized risk groups such as children, the elderly, immigrants and single parent families. Clearly, the priorities are to redress the Welfare State. Must act and must be fast and be consistent.

Despite poverty cannot disappear as it is a real social situation, I personally think that there are alternatives and solutions. However, we have to find the path and fight in order to protect what someone and the community want. A brainstorm is needed to obtain results. We have to avoid both tyranny subjugation and work abuse.

Bibliography

Frank, Robert. “Top 1% Control 39% of World’s Wealth”. 31/05/2013 [online]. Access: 22/05/2014 from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100780163

Fundació Jaume Bofill. “La pobresa és només conseqüència de la crisi?” 9/10/2012 [online]. Access 23/05/2014 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyBhTDhBC8k

Navarro, Vicenç. “El dramático deterioro de la España y de la Europa social” 3/04/2014 [online]. Access: 22/05/2014 from http://www.vnavarro.org/?p=10633

 

The football garbage. By Amaia Atxukarro

This year and every four years, the World Cup is held. As we know this event is one of the most important events in our societies. For that reason I would like to dedicate this article for that phenomenon but not only like a sport event but as a reflection of the society in which we live.

Maybe it isn`t necessary to say that in the world there are social inequalities and there are some people living under the poverty line. But in this article I am not going to deepen in this phenomenon or in their cause but in how these problems were faced by the public power. The goal of this article is to make people react about how is poverty understood and the problems that it generates.

Is true that since the creation of the Welfare states is assumed that it have to be a level of social redistribution to help people in worst life conditions, but it is obvious that in our time are poor people and the problem is how we faced these poverty. Here we can talk about a lot of examples for illustrate the argument defended by the idea of the criminalization of poverty.

For example, in Spain now a day the faults of sleeping or making a spectacle in the street are increasing. These type of measures reflected how our societies react against the poverty, or rather how we understood the problems that this poverty generated.

If we think reasonably, we noticed that these measures don’t give a solution of the real problem and that they only hide what we don´t like to assume, that there are people in very bad conditions living near us and that the state can´t or didn´t want to help them.

On the other hand, with these type of actions is demonstrated too that the law isn’t the same for everyone and it demonstrated the criminalization of poverty. Every of us have been sunbathing lying in the street or taking a nap in a garden and we didn’t have any problem with the authorities because we aren’t poor.

The criminalization of poverty lies in the idea named the theory of “Broken Windows” written by Wilson and Kelling in 1982 in USA[1]. This theory defense that the poverty creates criminal actions and for that reason is necessary to take measures for any type of fault however small is it, like sleeping in the street, to prevent more serious criminal acts.

However, this idea is the argument that is used to legitimated such measures but if we noticed the type of actions to “prevent criminality” maybe we noticed that this isn´t the real motivation or at least not the only.

One of the most striking examples in this sense is the World Cup that is going to celebrate this summer in Brazil. Brazil is a country with high level of poverty and social inequalities and if we aside the benefits or problems that it event can give for the country, because this is a very extensive debate, that we can notice is the measures that are giving for hide this poverty.

One of the most important ONGs, International Amnesty, has been reporting for over a year the forces evictions in Brazil by the Olympic Games and the World Cup. This evictions are recompensed with money but it isn´t enough to buy other house so this people will found in worse situations[2].

Therefore, is demonstrated that the real goal of these politics isn´t to give a solution for these people and that they are acting under the idea of the criminalization of poverty. The real goal is to hide this poverty and to prevent conflicts for the commodity of people that isn´t poor and all he wants to do is enjoy a wonderful event like the World Cup.

It is sad to noticed that the image of our cities or countries is most important than the life of some people, and that in order to make efforts to give a solution for this poverty we try to hide these people like when we try to hide the garbage under the bed when we try to pick up faster because the guest are about to arrive.

 

[1] Tinnesa, Giulio. “ Marginados, minorías e inmigrantes: criminalización de la pobreza y encarcelamiento masivo en las sociedades capitalistas avanzadas”. Pag 170. http://www.caritas.es/imagesrepository/CapitulosPublicaciones/927/11%20TRIBUNA%20ABIERTA.%20MARGINADOS,%20MINOR%C3%8DAS%20E%20INMIGRANTES_CRIMINALIZACI%C3%93N%20DE%20LA%20POBREZA.pdf

[2]“La otra cara de los juegos olímpicos”. Coordinadora Andaluza de ONGD.

http://www.caongd.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=523:la-otra-cara-de-los-juegos-olimpicos&catid=2:articulos&Itemid=7

 

 

 

 

The criminalization of poverty in Brazil. By Maria Dalinger

In Brazil, the biggest country of South America, the 15.9% of the population is considered very poor. In a country with 198 million citizens that means 31.4 millions of poor people. Since the country is getting prepare for the 2014 World Cup of Football and for the 2016 Olympic Games, the government had made a clean of poor people and poor zones in the main cities. At the same time the huge amount of public spends for the construction of the necessary infrastructures for the games, had reduced the budget for social policies. And the poorest people are the one who suffer.

What is happening in the Brazilian’s cities? People who are poor in those big cities live in neighbourhood overcrowded called Favelas. So the government decided, in the late years, to clean the Favelas of crime, arguing that is the focus of the most important drug gangs and drug trafficking. The organization which is in charge is the Pacifying Police Unit and these policemen are patrolling the Favelas with very strict rules. In words of Patricia da Oliveira (member of Rede Contra la Violencia) “[PPU] are another way to control the poverty”, she also claims that sins the PPU is around the favelas, the number of people calling because of the abuse of the authority. The PPU can be considered a military force, which controls the lowest classes.

Rede Contra La Violencia is an institution that gives help to people who is unjustly arrested by the police, and needs a lawyer to demand for their rights. So the Rede is fighting against the violence from state’s forces and against the violence of the human rights of poor people.

But this is not the only policy against the poverty in the Favelas, at the same time, because of the construction of some stadiums in Brazil, some had been demolished and 1000 people remained without house in Rio di Janeiro. Now, less of a month before of the Football Cup, the number of persons who’s lost their houses on favelas had increase to 1.5 million.

As a result of this situation and because of the setting of social policies budget, the citizens, especially the poorest, have organized social movements, asking for their social rights and to stop the destruction of the favelas. These protests are increasing with the imminent start of the World Cup, not only in the biggest cities as Rio or Sao Paulo, also in the others where the number of homeless is high as well. The newspapers describe the situation as “Una manifestación de ‘sin techo’ amenaza con sabotear el Mundial” (El Pais 23th may 2014) – Brazilian homeless protestors treat to shut down the World Cup- Why is this being presented as a something bad? All these homeless are also citizens, and they can do a mobilization against the World Cup if they consider that it’s unfair to lose their houses because of the sport events. But the media and the government criminalize the poverty with their speeches.

In my opinion, the Brazilian politicians are afraid of the consequences of the decision of be the host of those expensive sport events, that makes a big amount of people’s life worse. At the same time, this poor people is in disagreement with all this injustice making noise, that set up a reaction against the government around the World. They are damaging the Brazils image. So I can tie up that’s why the government is using force and violence to repress the distaste voices of the poor citizens, making a crime the fact that they are poor.

Sources:

http://www.redecontraviolencia.org/

http://datos.bancomundial.org/pais/brasil

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/26/favela-ghost-town-rio-world-cup

http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/05/23/inenglish/1400850505_227501.html

Criminalizing poverty is the best way of perpetuating it. By Marta Miquel

The criminalization of poverty is a phenomenon that has increasingly spread in liberal states and is gradually generating a larger class differentiation. Currently, the crisis and the austerity measures (Spinnewijn and Uhry, 2012) have left many people under the poverty line or very close to it and many people are being forced to perform actions such as begging or sleeping on the streets to survive. All of these individuals – many of them with familiar dependents – are in an increasingly high risk of social exclusion and the state, instead of using its resources to help these people get welfare, is imposing lots of legal barriers that don’t allow people to exit this situation (Ehrenreich, 2009). In many countries, in addition to disadvantaging vulnerable people through fines and other penalties, the State also tries to put the society against these people through advertisements and other media that demonize their image. There’re even countries, like Hungary, that have changed its Constitution to institutionalize the criminalization of homeless people (UN Experts, 2013). Therefore, it’s not just a problem of legal and economic nature to them, but also a social punishment because they know that people consider them criminals.

In my opinion, criminalization of poverty is a direct way to perpetuate poverty. If people who are forced to take “criminal” actions because of their poverty are deemed criminals, a vicious circle is formed that prevents people to have opportunities to improve their well-being: People who are being punished have no resources to pay themselves a decent life, so much less they have to pay for a defense if they are fined for some “anti-social” action (Spinnewijn and Uhry, 2012). This involves a gradually reduction of the few resources – through the payment of fines – that the individual may have to get out of his situation, forcing them to commit such actions more and more (the “anti-social” ones) because of his lack of money; and this leaves them exposed to a continuous punishment, returning to the starting point but every time in a worse situation.

Given this social problem I think many States are making a mistake with the definition of “anti-social” behavior, with the role of the Welfare State and the public sector, and with the message that the State wants to send to society about the situation of these people. First of all I think that, although the definition of “anti-social” behavior is always relative and has many nuances (especially marked by the ideology), what a State can’t do is consider that a behavior is “anti-social” when it comes to people who have been thrown into a poverty situation that forces them to undertake actions that they wouldn’t do if they were protected financially and socially.

Secondly, the Welfare State is supposed to redistribute income population because everyone deserve minimum living conditions, but at the same time the legal system is becoming a trap for those individuals who are in the last rung of the social pyramid. I think this paradox is well reflected in the role of state security forces: They shouldn’t only fine, obey the law and establish order in public space, but also ensure protection to those vulnerable through the public sector resources. The politicians must be able to deal with the problem of having an increasingly impoverished and at risk of social exclusion population, and the State has to invest part of the money collected in making public policies with the purpose of improving their welfare to help them having a decent life and getting back to being productive to society. I think a good way to reinsert them in society, apart from social assistance, is through training courses for different jobs.

Finally, and related to the first two points, I think that the message that the State is sending to the population about the situation of these people is that these individuals have to resort to such actions must be punished because they are responsible for their own situation. Thus, the State is blaming them. If the State saw these people as victims of a particular context that has led them to poverty it would dedicate part of its funds to improve their situation, but instead of helping is increasingly choking them. It is not just that these people may not receive state aid, is also that the State is punishing them for being poor, as if the actions that are forced to perform were voluntary. The idea that is being transmitted is worrying, since I don’t think it is about any ideology but a matter of decency, and I think this shouldn’t be allowed anywhere.

References:

–          Spinnewijn, Freek and Uhry,Marc(2012). Criminalizing homelessness is anti-democratic and instigates hatred. URL: http://www.euractiv.com/socialeurope/criminalising-homelessness-anti-analysis-513181

–          Ehrenreich, Barbara (2009). Is it now a crime to be poor? URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09ehrenreich.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

–          UN Experts (2013). Hungary must retract law that makes homelessness a crime.URL: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44545&Cr=Hungary&Cr1#.U4TLHfl_uSp

The utilitarianism of human dignity. By E.B.N.

It still surprises me when I repeat myself: it is a crime to be poor. It makes anyone wonder if humans have a limit and at the same time, prove that the famous quote “humans are the only animal that kill each other” is more true than ever due to the fact that “People who have no choice but to live on the street are now in danger of criminal sanctions” (UN News Centre, 2012). Since the application of the law, homeless people are deprived of their basic needs and rights such as liberty, privacy and protection, and the main reason of this is because they are mired in poverty and do not have anywhere to live except the streets.

How have we reached such situation? Such deprivation of human rights? In April 2012 the new Act on Petty Offenses entered into force with 245 votes in favour and only 45 against. This law categorizes as a criminal offense sleeping in public spaces or storing belongings in them. The punishment range from US$ 655 to 75 years days of imprisoment and as Lydia Gall established “Fines and jail will do nothing to address fundamental problems that lead to homelessness” (Human Rights watch, 2012). Moreover, the constitution has been degraded to a tool of day-to-day political battle instead of being a document that provides the framework for conflicts like that in order to limit them.

There is an estimated 33.000 people wandering in the streets and about 8.000 of them live in Budapest, where there are only 5.500 available places in public shelters. “What shelters provide is the appearance of a solution, allowing governments to shy away from more encompassing housing policies that could really alleviate homelessness” (Böll Stiftung, 2013); warehousing homeless in shelters is not the solution for the lack of access to adequate housing. It is crucial to emphasize that both criminalisation and overcrowded shelters are insufficient and incorrect responses.There is still the need of a comprehensive housing policy, which would address the root causes of the situation.

This law is a consequence of the authoritarian and punitive turn in Hungary, which abolished constitutional democracy and most of the labour, personal and civil rights every single human should be in possession of. However, now it seems that is more important to keep Hungary culture and tourists safe rather than give every citizen the right he deserve.

Should public founds be used to penalize or assist those people who find themselves in poverty? Even though the answer would seem obvious, there has to be something missing if we, humans, act like that with homeless.

If a government is capable of changing the constitution, which represents something that was considered as human’s dignity, because does not fit in their thoughts and intentions, would in the future be possible to reform the Declaration of Human Rights? It looks like as if all those rules and laws that were once achieved to protect us, are nowadays just inherited sheets of papers that were once the most important accomplishment of humanity.

It has been proved, once again, that terms such as “welfare state” and “economic growth” are not compatible and, unfortunately, the politicians and economic leaders prefer –by far- the second one. If we keep believing that the problem lies in the lack of shelters and in consequence we keep spending money on building more, we will not be able to understand that homelessness is nothing but a social problem and that the state must take care of homeless and face the situation with social measures and care instead of punish.

Poor people are in their right to choose between sleeping in the street or in the shelters and if we had listened carefully to them we would have taken into account the fact that they have to encounter possible aggressions while they are sleeping in the shelters. This lack of voice has made rich people think that they are superior and absolutely the contrary of them. Everyone should, to start with, understand their situation and ask them why they do not want to go to a shelter. Once we have listened everything they have to teach us about a situation we are fully unaware of, we can start to propose solutions and criticize about –with wisdom- their attitudes or the conditions they confront.

M. Walzer stated that in those situations categorized as “supreme emergency”, human beings cling to utilitarianism for pure survival instinct. When consciousness is no longer based on moral issues, the state legitimacy dies. It is believed that the currently situation is due to the fact that Hungary’s elite does not suffer from an economic crisis but a political one. In consequence, they need to ensure that they remain dominant in a society that sinks as a result of a regime change. The exemption of morality, as declared Walzer, can only be understood – but no justified- in a supreme emergency situation; Hungary is not facing that sort of circumstance, but morality is currently non-existent.

We should start thinking of what we regard as more important, if public order, public security, public health and cultural values or human dignity. Hungary is the first European country to apply a law considered as “inhuman” in their own constitution. The more worrying fact is not that it has been so easy to reform the constitution, but also internationally there has not been any warning or political movement from international actors to impede the constitutional process. If we reckon that these homeless are sleeping in the street due to their wishes and we do nothing to prohibit the final resolution of the Hungarian court, means that we have finally reach an era with a completely lack of human empathy. The 21th century can now be called the dehumanization century.

Bibliography

Böll Stiftung, Heinrich (2013). “From shelters to prisons? How homelessness became illegal in Hungary”. The Green Political Foundation (12 December 2013).

http://www.boell.de/en/2013/12/12/shelters-prisons-how-homelessness-became-illegal-hungary

Human Rights Watch “Hungary: Revoke Law Criminalizing Homeless” (16 April 2012).

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/16/hungary-revoke-law-criminalizing-homeless

UN News Centre (2012) “UN experts speak out against Hungarian law criminalizing homelessness” (15 February 2012).

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41246

Walzer, Michael (2012) “Political action: the problem of dirty hands”. Wiley Blackwell [15 February 2012]

Right of Housing? By Gloria Pérez

Housing is one of the factors that promote social integration. The lack of home makes people feel unprotected and with no privacy and these increase the feel of insecurity and increase the deterioration of relationships. So, since housing helps the social inclusion, it has to be guaranteed by the State.

The Spanish Constitution in the article 47 said that:

“Todos los españoles tienen derecho a disfrutar de una vivienda digna y adecuada. Los poderes públicos promoverán las condiciones necesarias y establecerán las normas pertinentes para hacer efectivo este derecho […]”

It means that the right of housing is guarantee constitutionally.

However, nowadays Spain has more than 200.000 homeless people in their streets[1] and more than 3 million of empty houses[2]. And these dates are increasing. The causes of this growth of poverty are the huge economy crisis its society is living now. This situation is impacting low income people that have been affected by the increasing unemployment of the finance system.

But, instead of meet the social demand of homeless people by the welfare state Spain regions have municipal and regional ordinances of civil coexistence that has the aim to criminalize the homelessness and therefore the poverty in order to regulate different types of acts that disturb the good coexistent in the city, and is included the homelessness and begging. Nevertheless, according with Housing Rights Watch, this law does not criminalize them in public directly, but banned the homeless that disturbs and annoyed the traffic and pedestrians of the city, and which are minor involved. The aim of this ordinance or law are to guarantee the right of citizens to transit through the town in peace, the protection of minors and the right to use public places. Above all, this law emphasizes the acts that are aggressive and annoying to the citizens.

More of the cities and regions are carrying out laws against this phenomenon. At the most important cities of Spain poverty is criminalized. The Council of the City of Madrid wanted to approve a norm that forbids people that sleeps on the streets; this would be together with a fine of 750 Euros to them. In Barcelona the town hall, as other cities, regulates the begging in order to “protect” the right of citizens to walk through the city undisturbed by indigent, and the fines dependently of the severity are from 120 to 3000 Euros if are minor involved. But, according to UN’s Universal declaration of human rights and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, it violate human rights of equality and no discrimination by the name of “public Safety”.

Besides at Barcelona are some services provided by the politics institutions. These institutions provide residential centers that host people that have been years being homelessness; also there are centers that hosts people that want autonomy, and there are hostels. Another Kind of these residential centers is which the access is direct by the person. Other centers provide temporally hosts. Besides it has complementary services that are included in social host, for instance housing, food and hygiene, social care and health care. However, it policy is no effective because at Barcelona streets are every day more and more begging people; and because nowadays government are reducing these services and programs because of the economic situation. And due to this lack of effectiveness and resources some ONGs have to provide some services at this kind of citizens.

In conclusion, the right of housing of the constitution of Spain is not guarantee by the State, so a lot of people are living on the streets and nowadays this phenomenon are increasing. Therefore government should build more housing, make administrative policies, etc. to resolve it. Nevertheless, in exchange they are banning by fines people who have not house, and so some entities have been made up by volunteers that have the aim to help poor people. That is to say, non profits entities and ONGs have had to carry out the functions that the welfare State has not been doing.

References:

Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP). Ordenanza Tipo de Seguridad y convivencia ciudadana. “Comisión de Seguridad y Convivencia Ciudadana”.

 

Ajuntament de Barcelona. Projecte d’ordenança de mesures per fomentar i garantir la convivència ciutadana a la ciutat de Barcelona (2005).

 

FEANTSA: http://www.feantsa.org

Housing Rights Watch: http://www.housingrightswatch.org/page/criminalisation-4#.U3kIpPl_v0k

Instituto Nacional de Estadística de España

 

[1]Instituto Nacional de Estadística

[2]Instituto Nacional de Estadística

Poverty: Whose Fault Is It Anyway? By Bridget Manning

The poor. What should we do with them? Do we, as a society let them be, leave them no choice but to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? Or do we, as a society, acknowledge that there is much more at play than one’s individual motivation, or lack there of, that serves to keep many trapped in poverty?
Let’s examine the first option: leaving the poor alone to figure their own way out of poverty. This option is not worth considering, and let me tell you why. Today, in the USA (and around the world) poverty has become criminalized. Leaving the poor alone is not an option, as their behavior continues to be sought out and punished. Enrenreich points to a study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, “which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more ‘neutral’ infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol” (2009). There is no even playing field to speak of, which is why it is not an option to leave things as they are and expect the poor to be able to break the cycle of poverty.
This leaves us with the second option: acknowledging society’s role in the continued existence of poverty and its criminalization. There are many negative ideas and stereotypes of poverty and the poor that have permeated American society. “By the Reagan era, it had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology that poverty is caused not by low wages or a lack of jobs and education, but by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles of the poor” (Ehrenreich 2014). The poor were blamed, and often continue to be blamed entirely for their situation, assumed to be lazy, and assumed to have little regard for societal norms, regulations, and laws. We must examine these societal norms, regulations, and laws to see if the poor or the laws are in fact to blame for poverty and its criminalization.
One such law that criminalizes the poor and racial minorities (mostly blacks and Latinos) is New York City’s ‘Stop and Frisk’ Law. This law allows officers in NYC to stop and search people on the street based on “reasonable suspicion” (Ax & Lopes 2014). It was found that blacks and Latinos comprised more than 80 percent of all police stops in 2012, although they make up a little more than half of the population (Ax & Lopes 2014). Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, “For too long, communities of color have felt under siege by the police, and young Black and Latino men have disproportionately been the target” (Ax & Lopes 2014). This law is an example of racial profiling, which Ehrenreich sites as “by far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty” (2009). These racially charged laws clearly affect the poor at a higher rate, as the poor are largely of ethnic or racial minorities. The 2010 United States Census report “showed increases in poverty for whites, blacks, and Hispanic Americans, with historic disparities continuing. The poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was 9.4 percent, for blacks 35.8 percent and for Hispanics 25.9 percent” (Eckholm 2010).
Not only is getting arrested a problem for the poor, it is also the sequence of events that follows. Many would consider the criminal justice system in America (and around the world) as a maze, often riddled with obstacles. There are many steps, many people involved, and apparently, many fees. Administrative fees are being tacked on at almost every step of the criminal justice system. And unfortunately, most of the people filed through the system are among the poorest in the country. In the system, defendants are often charged for: time in the pretrial rooms, their electronic monitoring bracelet, collection of DNA samples and more (The Editorial Board 2014). Even more outlandishly, defendants are forced to pay, “in 43 states and the District of Columbia, to ‘apply’ for a court-appointed lawyer—even though free legal assistance for criminal defendants who can’t afford it is a constitutional right” (The Editorial Board 2014). To make it worse, these fees are not regulated because they are “unlike fines, which are part of a punishment and thus within a judge’s discretion” (The Editorial Board 2014). The criminal justice system in America has almost become an industry, taking advantage of the poor to make money. “States add insult to injury by piling interest on to these charges, sometimes called the “poverty penalty”; in Washington State, the rate is 12 percent while a person is incarcerated. In some cases, people are sent to jail simply for failing to pay on time, which only increases the costs to the state” (The Editorial Board 2014). These laws and policies are clearly criminalizing poverty; sending those who can’t pay ridiculous fees to jail.
We can probably all agree, or at least I hope, that there are many contributing factors to poverty in America (individual choices, market forces, racism, sexism, classism, etc.). I propose that the solutions needed to lift many out of poverty must come from many angles. The keystone, however, will be changing the stereotypes of the poor and minorities (who are more likely to be poor) to decrease the criminalization of poverty and break the cycle of poverty for many. The first step: we need to abolish laws that have institutionalized discrimination against the poor. There is no hope to eradicate discrimination amongst the people, if there is still discrimination written in laws. Laws that apply to everyone ‘equally’ does not necessarily mean that they are just or that they are not discriminatory. As one city attorney put it, “the law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges” (Ehrenreich 2009). This law has neither majestic nor equal consequences. I invite that attorney to give me a call the next time a rich person is arrested for sleeping under a bridge.

References:

Ax, J., & Lopes, M. (2014, January 30). New York City ends legal defense of stop-and-frisk police tactic. Reuters.

Eckholm, E. (2010, September 16). Recession Raises Poverty Rate to a 15-Year High. The New York Times.

Ehrenreich, B. (2009, August 9). Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor. The New York Times.

Ehrenreich, B. (2014, January 13). It Is Expensive to Be Poor. The Atlantic.

The Editorial Board. (2014, May 20). Pay Up or Go to Jail. The New York Times.