Speed trap as fund-raiser > clerical error lost paid ticket > license suspended > road block as fund-raiser > zero-tolerance "suspended license == go to jail" > impounded car, $1200 bond, and jail time "waiting on the judge to post bond."
Man, virtually the exact same thing happened to me: forgot to renew my license plate; got a ticket; paid the ticket; clerical error lost paid ticket; license suspended; suspension notice was never delivered (postal strike); got pulled over (suspended license puts your license plate on the "must stop" list); went to court.
The key is what happens next. As an employed software engineer with no priors, I could negotiate. There are many things they can charge you with and it is completely at their whim which one you will get. I apologised profusely in my nice suit and walked away with a (small for me) fine. Other people in virtually the same situation got nailed to the wall. You didn't want to be one of those people arguing how unfair it was to be pulled in to court when you never got a suspension notice.
Of course, they suspended my license again without telling me. Got the notice a month(!) later. I gave up driving after that. Since then I've driven a car maybe 4 times in the last 12 years.
This is way more common than people realize. Simple traffic violations spiral out of control for a lot of lower income people and they end up with felonies. It's a huge criminal justice issue.
Speeding is always illegal, and not just for poor people. So is driving without a license. Do you believe those laws are unjust and/or targeting poor people?
The laws don't affect the rich and the poor in the same way.
A poor person with a suspended license cannot afford the cab ride to work and are thus forced to choose between either not going to work, losing their job and watching their children starve or taking the risk and driving. A relatively well off person just catches a cab or an uber.
An arrested poor person in jail waits days to weeks for a below average attorney to be appointed for them who will more often than not encourage them to accept a plea deal because their attorney has limited time and has to meet with 12 more poor clients today. A wealthy person has an aggressive attorney who will get to work immediately on getting their client out on bond and fighting the charges.
A poor person goes to prison. A wealthy person gets probation and is found to struggle from affluenza or a light sentence because of their "youth and clean record".
After getting out of prison a poor person struggles to find work and is stuck in a cycle. A rich person goes to a nice dinner.
Our legal system is a machine powered by the lives of the poor and the money of the wealthy.
The laws don't have to be unjust for the enforcement to be biased and discriminatory. Even when the enforcement is unbiased, and that's a pretty big if, the consequences aren't nearly the same for the poor as they are for the rich.
Sure, but I think most people would agree that the problem is not that the law is enforced for poor people, but that sometimes rich people can get away with breaking the law.
That is true but I think there are also times when it isn't so much a problem of rich people necessarily getting away with breaking the law, although obviously this happens as well, as much as specifically targeting laws or the enforcement of laws that disproportionally effect poorer communities.
Another issue for me is that things like fines obviously carry a punitive function, people break a law and you want to punish them financially and deter the future behavior. When it comes to something like jail time, the rich and the poor are punished the same, again assuming an unbiased justice system. Six months in jail is more or less the same whether you're rich or poor. On the other hand, the punitive effects of a fine vary greatly based on your wealth. A $300 speeding ticket might be a lesson in the importance of obeying traffic laws and a minor annoyance if you're middle class. On the other hand, if you're living off of $1100 per month, that could be the difference between being able to make rent or not. It isn't that the poor should get away with breaking traffic laws, traffic deaths are a huge issue so they definitely shouldn't, but the punitive effects of the fine shouldn't be so vastly different based on income. I believe some countries, I seem to remember it being some Nordic countries, base fines off of income levels.
At the same time, fines are surely the most bening of all the things that hit poor people harder, since unlike rent or tuition fees they are entirely avoidable.
It's not "unfortunate" it's an example of how a clerical error that would be an inconvenience somewhere where public transport is good or if you have enough money to pay for taxis becomes nearly catastrophic if you are poor.
He made a mistake, paid his fine and that should have been that.
> He made a mistake, paid his fine and that should have been that.
Exactly. It's not like I even made a choice to drive with a suspended license. This was nearly 20 years ago now, and it happened in a tiny no-red-light town with no computer system. The ticket was for 61 in a 55 on a downhill grade. The dead-tree paperwork that confirmed that I had paid got lost, they had the wrong address on file, and I never found out my license was suspended. Cut to 2 years later and a different blink-and-you-miss it town that happens to be on a border bottleneck is running their weekly roadblock while I happen to pass through, and next thing I know it's "Step out of the car and put your hands behind your back."
Sorry, it wasn't clear to me that you were not aware of the suspended license.
I still think that you can't complain about getting the initial fine, regardless of the size of the town where you broke the law. I also don't see how this is really connected with being poor.
If you're arguing that many speed limits are set to low I'm totally with you, but that's a separate question.
Shit, do you really think that people who get speeding tickets deserve jail time? You understand that the punishment should be proportional to the crime, right?
You should get a fine for speeding, and jailtime might be appropriate for driving without a license. The problem here is that it seems the offender had not been told about the suspension, thats very unfortunate but not a feature of the justice system. And the clerical error could have affected Bill Gates too.
Over in Alameda County, within sight of the Silicon Valley unicorns, people have been incorrectly arrested, jailed, and even ordered to register as sex offenders because of software used by the courts:
Didn't go to jail but I did have a warrant out for my arrest because the community service officer didn't turn in my paperwork. $200 down the drain plus having to lose a half a day of work, drive to another city (30 min) as well deal with a crying parent on the phone that I hadn't told about what had happened (because it was so dumb - setting off fireworks).
Going through it all, since it ended ok, was good. I was 20 and learned even more to 1) not trust cops, 2) the courts are fallible and 3) it's more f-cked up for other people than a white kid in college (which I was but sat through a lot of other cases that day and the previous time there).
In the case of drug crimes, I agree with you. Appeal of the logic starts to break down when you scale it out for violent offenders. In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling.
You said "In fact, I find the lax sentencing in Scandanavian countries appalling." I'm asking if you're appalled by the low recidivism rates their apparently-appalling justice system produces.
"Socialism works so well there! We should do it here."
"They have such low recidivism there! We should use their sentencing as a standard!"
I think violent offenses are more than something that requires reform for the perpetrator. It requires justice for the victim. Rape and murder? Fuck you, you're going away FOREVER.
What, exactly is the socialist/capitalist dividing line when it comes to sentencing length? At what point does a short murder sentence become a sign of socialism?
You still haven't answered if you find their recidivism rates a problem. It's perfectly fine if your are of the opinion that their system will not work outside their set of circumstances, but you've stated that you find their sentencing appalling without ever commenting on how you view their results.
If you don't care about results, and only about the morality of their choices then state that
Looking through the comments, I see a combination of anecdotal evidence about Unions being bad/good and a few (very logical) statements about how collective bargaining leads to higher wages & benefits.
Here are my two pennies:
Private sector unions are great for collective bargaining, though I prefer they abstain from broad political platforms (immigration, for example), as these are so far removed the intent of the union. I tend to view these Unions as being political vehicles first, collective bargaining agents second. That isn't a compliment.
Public sector unions are awkward in that tax payer is not represented at the bargaining table. They should be restructured to make bargaining comparable to the private sector case (or reverse Aboud).
My personal experiences with Unions are very negative.
In the first experience, in SoCal in the early 90s, I saw first hand when the Teamsters moved to unionize drywall framers. My dad was a small scale developer in the San Gabriel Valley and during a protest, a Teamsters boss on a megaphone encouraged a mob of picketers to run through the project with hammers and destroy recently hung drywall. My dad also received death threats and we had a rock thrown through a window.
My second experience was doing campaign targeting for AFSCME. The people I met from that org were in the extreme far left part of the political spectrum (as in "Stalin had some good ideas"). Take from that what you will.
> Private sector unions are great for collective bargaining, though I prefer they abstain from broad political platforms (immigration, for example), as these are so far removed the intent of the union. I tend to view these Unions as being political vehicles first, collective bargaining agents second. That isn't a compliment.
The feature you're describing is not an accident. Lobbying for restrictive immigration laws (not just political platforms in general, but that specific platform and issue) is the exact reason that unions like the AFL originally gained the size and political power that they have today.
In the absence of federal support programs, are people who would drive for Uber or any of these gig-type apps better or worse off with the opportunity to earn $4.40/hr?
If you raise that wage, most likely the business model ceases to be worthwhile for Uber, so the job goes away. I don't think that means it is replaced with something better.
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