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Not a crime to be poor : the criminalization of poverty in America / Peter Edelman.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : The New Press, 2017Copyright date: ©2017Description: xix, 293 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781620971635
  • 1620971631
Other title:
  • Criminalization of poverty in America
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction -- pt. 1. The criminalization of poverty -- Ferguson is everywhere : twenty-first-century debtors' prisons -- Fighting back : the advocates and their work -- Money bail -- The criminalization of mental illness -- Child support : criminalizing poor fathers -- Criminalizing public benefits -- Poverty, race, and discipline in schools : go directly to jail -- Crime-free housing ordinances and the criminalization of homelessness -- pt. 2. Ending poverty -- Taking criminal justice reform seriously -- Turning the coin over : ending poverty as we know it.
Summary: "Most Americans believe debtors' prisons are a thing of the past. Yet today, people are in jail by the thousands for no other reason than that they are poor. As the Justice Department found when it investigated police practices in Ferguson, Missouri, massive fines and fees are levied for minor crimes such as broken taillights and rolling through stop signs, and when the poor cannot pay, the result is an epidemic of repeated stays in jail. Bail is routinely set without consideration of a defendant's ability to pay, resulting in one kind of justice system for those who can buy their way out and another harshly punitive one for those who can't. In Not a Crime to Be Poor, Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman argues that Ferguson is everywhere in America today. Through money bail systems, fees and fines, drivers license suspensions by the millions, strictly enforced laws against behavior including vagrancy and public urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have traditionally served the impoverished, one of the richest countries on Earth has effectively criminalized poverty. Edelman, who famously resigned from the administration of Bill Clinton over welfare "reform," connects the dots between disciplinary policies that disproportionately send African American and Latino schoolchildren to court for minor misbehavior, child support policies that send penniless fathers to jail, public housing rules that bar ex-offenders, the eviction of women who call 911 to get protection against domestic violence, and the threat of fraud charges against public benefit recipients to paint a picture of a mean-spirited system that turns daily struggles into inescapable poverty. Tracing this trend back to the so-called tax revolution when voters insisted that politicians cut taxes drastically, forcing cities and states to look to alternative ways of raising money, Edelman shows that we still live in a country where, to our great shame, it is a crime to be poor."--Jacket flap.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 362.5561 E21 Available 33111009161551
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Awarded "Special Recognition" by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards



Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award



Named one of the "10 books to read after you've read Evicted" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel



"Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America."--Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy



Winner of a special Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the book that Evicted author Matthew Desmond calls "a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty . . . lucid and troubling"



In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands. As Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, in fact Ferguson is everywhere: the debtors' prisons of the twenty-first century. The anti-tax revolution that began with the Reagan era led state and local governments, starved for revenues, to squeeze ordinary people, collect fines and fees to the tune of 10 million people who now owe $50 billion.



Nor is the criminalization of poverty confined to money. Schoolchildren are sent to court for playground skirmishes that previously sent them to the principal's office. Women are evicted from their homes for calling the police too often to ask for protection from domestic violence. The homeless are arrested for sleeping in the park or urinating in public.



A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy and senior official in the Clinton administration, Peter Edelman has devoted his life to understanding the causes of poverty. As Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy has said, "No one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman." And former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, "If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-276) and index.

Introduction -- pt. 1. The criminalization of poverty -- Ferguson is everywhere : twenty-first-century debtors' prisons -- Fighting back : the advocates and their work -- Money bail -- The criminalization of mental illness -- Child support : criminalizing poor fathers -- Criminalizing public benefits -- Poverty, race, and discipline in schools : go directly to jail -- Crime-free housing ordinances and the criminalization of homelessness -- pt. 2. Ending poverty -- Taking criminal justice reform seriously -- Turning the coin over : ending poverty as we know it.

"Most Americans believe debtors' prisons are a thing of the past. Yet today, people are in jail by the thousands for no other reason than that they are poor. As the Justice Department found when it investigated police practices in Ferguson, Missouri, massive fines and fees are levied for minor crimes such as broken taillights and rolling through stop signs, and when the poor cannot pay, the result is an epidemic of repeated stays in jail. Bail is routinely set without consideration of a defendant's ability to pay, resulting in one kind of justice system for those who can buy their way out and another harshly punitive one for those who can't. In Not a Crime to Be Poor, Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman argues that Ferguson is everywhere in America today. Through money bail systems, fees and fines, drivers license suspensions by the millions, strictly enforced laws against behavior including vagrancy and public urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have traditionally served the impoverished, one of the richest countries on Earth has effectively criminalized poverty. Edelman, who famously resigned from the administration of Bill Clinton over welfare "reform," connects the dots between disciplinary policies that disproportionately send African American and Latino schoolchildren to court for minor misbehavior, child support policies that send penniless fathers to jail, public housing rules that bar ex-offenders, the eviction of women who call 911 to get protection against domestic violence, and the threat of fraud charges against public benefit recipients to paint a picture of a mean-spirited system that turns daily struggles into inescapable poverty. Tracing this trend back to the so-called tax revolution when voters insisted that politicians cut taxes drastically, forcing cities and states to look to alternative ways of raising money, Edelman shows that we still live in a country where, to our great shame, it is a crime to be poor."--Jacket flap.

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