Mass incarceration has been doing its damage for decades, but a newer criminalization—the criminalization of poverty—arrived with the Reagan era and the anti-tax rebellion that is still with us. Strapped, governments at all levels cut budgets and looked for money wherever they could find it. Among other things, states and municipalities turned to ubiquitous “user fees,” and the whole criminal “justice” system jacked up fines to exorbitant levels and soaked defendants with enormous fees irrelevant to the case, followed by more fees for every stage of the process from diversion to money bail to room and board in prisons. Drivers’ license suspensions are an especially effective tool. Altogether, ten million people owe $50 billion for a sweeping list of penalties, composed disproportionately of people of color.¹ It earned its name of “criminalization of poverty.”

Keep Reading The Criminalization of Poverty and the People who Fight Back